Time Will Tell
by Alecto Perdita
Summary: Chloe died, taken out in the line of duty as she always feared. Yet she woke up, safe and whole, in her bed. At first, she wrote it off as déjà vu or even a nightmare. Until it happened again and again... Was she losing her mind? Or was Lucifer, the actual, Biblical Devil and her former partner whom she hasn't spoken to in months, somehow responsible? (Post-Season 3 AU)
1. Chapter 1

Written for the Deckerstar Big Bang organized on tumblr. Thanks to coldflash-is-life on tumblr for being my artist collaborator. See archived fic on AO3 for a link to the fanart illustration.

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Chapter 1/8  
Loop 1

A pulsing tempo and a chorus of trampling beats drove Chloe from slumber's rib-cracking embrace. She extended an arm out from under the blanket and groped across her nightstand surface. Her fumbling fingers eventually located the oversized snooze button, cutting off the radio in the middle of the song's chorus.

_"As for the two of us?_  
_ Only time—"_

The blocky, red digits on the alarm's face declared it to be seven in the morning.

Flopping onto her back again, she stared at her sun-speckled ceiling. It was another beautiful day in LA. But every day was gorgeous in SoCal. In the ringing silence, she strained to hear beyond her closed bedroom door.

Three months ago, the apartment would have been rife with the sounds of life. Trixie had been an inexplicable early bird since she was seven, prone to climbing onto the couch to watch early morning cartoons. Maze might wander in at this hour after spending all night out chasing a bounty or a good time. She'd slam cabinets open and shut as she searched for the hair of the dog. Not that she ever had a hangover. On the mornings after Marcus spent the nights, he would have crawled out of Chloe's bed hours ago to catch up on paperwork or throw together a haphazard breakfast of slightly burnt toast and overcooked eggs for the household. And before Marcus, Lucifer had been prone to breaking and entering, eager to catch new cases and treat the Decker women to admittedly the best omelets she's ever had.

But now? There was only silence.

She sat up and scrubbed her face with her palms. No point ruminating on the past. The harsh acetone of hindsight had stripped it of its once rosy veneer. Maze wasn't her roommate anymore. Marcus was a murderous asshole and dead. And Lucifer? Who knew where he was or what he was doing?

No, enough of that. Time to get up, make breakfast, send Trixie to school, and go into work. This was her reality.

She relied on the years of rote practice to take her through her morning routine. But she felt far older than her spry age of thirty-six. (Almost as old as—) Soon, she'd showered and dressed. In front of her full-length mirror, she smoothed out the faint wrinkles in her blazer. As she patted down her sides, an irregular bump in her left pocket gave her pause. She reached into the pocket, fingertips brushing against something soft before grasping a thin shaft. Her breath caught in her throat, knowing full well what it was before her trembling hand drew it out.

It was a feather. In its original pristine form, it would have been snow white and as long as six inches. But something snapped it in half, pink tinged the top portion of the shaft while dried blood clumped around the broken end of the quill. She had pocketed it on that fateful day, right before untimely backup herded her away from Marcus' corpse and the loft that resembled a war-zone.

Nothing remained in the aftermath other than bullet holes, bloodstained feathers, broken statues, and the shattered remains of her worldview.

Bringing the morbid souvenir to eye-level, she rolled the quill between the fingers. But despite its matted vane and the bloodstains, it shone with an unearthly glow through no fault of the early Californian sun.

Unearthly. Because it wasn't of this Earth.

"Mommy!"

Chloe snapped out of her stupor, stuffed the broken feather back into her pocket, and spun to face her daughter—fully dressed with her bookbag slung across her back and lunch bag in hand—hovering in her open doorway.

"I'm going to be late!" Trixie exclaimed.

Her stomach sank after glancing sideways at the clock on her nightstand and reading the time. Somehow, she had lost almost forty minutes. She told herself it was the fatigue or the lack of caffeine—anything mundane to chase away the cold slither coiled around her spine.

She snapped up her phone and keys before heading downstairs. She grabbed a protein bar from the cabinet on the way to the door. No time for coffee now. Depending on traffic, she might have time to hit a Starbucks drive-through. But more likely, she'd have to settle for the awful office coffee.

"You got everything you need?" she asked her daughter, balancing on one foot as she zipped up her left boot. "Your karate uniform?"

"It's Wednesday," Trixie sighed. When did she learn to express exasperation like that?

Right, karate lessons were Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Wednesdays were… "Okay, Tracy will pick you up today."

"I'm going to Madison's after school, remember? You said I could last week!" Trixie protested.

Right. Right. Chloe should have checked her calendar before opening her mouth. "Sorry, monkey. Madison's mom is picking up both of you, right?"

Trixie nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Jeez, mom, do _you_ have everything you need?"

Chloe ruffled her daughter's hair, eliciting another round of protest, and ushered them out the door. Trixie was growing up so fast. If Chloe wasn't careful, she would be a teenager, then a woman in the blink of an eye. She almost wished time would stop.

-x-x-x-

Chloe blew into the precinct as if the hounds of Hell were on her heels. With barely a nod toward Ella, arms laden with a box full of files and deep in conversation with Officer Engles, Chloe sprinted across the mezzanine, down the stairs, and straight across the bullpen to her desk. She collapsed onto her chair before catching her breath.

Dan rolled his chair from his desk to hers. "Cutting it close, aren't you?"

She snuck a glance at the lieutenant's office, where the new CO, Lieutenant Grieve, looked up in time to cast a disapproving look. She ducked behind her computer monitor before hissing at her ex, "I'm well aware."

In the darkened reflection staring back from the unpowered monitor's screen, she noted her frazzled appearance and the flyaway strands escaping her ponytail. She pulled the hair-tie free and quickly redid her hair.

"I'm looking out for you, Chlo. You just came off suspension. You don't want to piss Grieve off this early."

As she opened her mouth to rip Dan a new one, an ear-splitting bang ripped through the bullpen. Chloe instinctively dropped out of her chair, slipped under her desk, and reached for her holstered weapon. Other than flinching, Dan remained in his seat. Upon further reflection, the sound wasn't remotely like a gunshot. But for whatever reason, Chloe's fatigue-addled mind interpreted it as gunfire.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Ella exclaimed.

She peered out into the middle of the bullpen, watching as Ella flew down the stairs to retrieve her box and its contents now strewn across the floor. Chloe's heart continued to pound in her ears like a runaway train. Who needs caffeine after a shot-in-the-arm dose of adrenaline?

-x-x-x-

Her victim was found at a foreclosed warehouse in the Wholesale District. She had no wallet or other identification on her person, thus earning her the moniker of "Jane Doe." To Chloe's eternal relief, there were no signs of sexual assault or violence. In life, Jane Doe must have been the perfect picture of health. Even in the autopsy photos, she resembled an elegant porcelain doll: all pale skin and red hair. By the ME's best guess, she was anywhere from her late twenties to mid-thirties.

Chloe flipped through the crime scene photos, eyes sweeping over shots of the warehouse's interior. In particular, she lingered on the image of the victim, spread-eagled on the dusty floor and a dark red blossom of blood across her chest, radiating out from the railroad spike driven through her sternum. It was far from the most grotesque death seen in her line of work. But there was something unnerving about the scene that sent a shiver down her spine even when viewed through the lens of her memory. She still remembered the unseasonable chill that had settled inside the warehouse. Part of the reason the body had been so well preserved despite the victim having been killed two days prior to discovery.

Uniforms canvassing the area turned up nothing out of the ordinary, other than a few complaints about bright lights and singing at night. But the former industrial boomtown played occasional host to pop-up raves and other dance parties. The LAPD often turned a blind eye as they were hard to catch and harder to shut down.

The folder slipped from her fingers and hit her desk with a soft fwoosh. Her fingers found purchase around the bridge of her nose. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the low thrumming in her temples. Jane/John Does were never easy cases, but now she felt like she was repeatedly ramming her head against a wall.

Who was she kidding? Police work was never easy. Demanding, sure. Even gratifying when she put a murderer behind bars. But easy? Never. She had almost forgotten what it was like to investigate cases the old-fashioned way. Lucifer's connections always opened doors faster than any warrant. He was her golden goose—a provider of her much-needed eggs.

No, it was more accurate to say it was his powers—the Devil's power. He all too happily supplied his skills and his help. But why?

The memory of a red, ravaged figure looming over Marcus' body, where an obsidian blade that struck the death blow jutted out of his chest, flashed across her mind's eye. A cold sweat broke across her brow, and she shivered.

No. Focus on the case. Someone out there was looking for her Jane Doe.

-x-x-x-

She spent hours digging through missing person reports filed within the last week. At one point, Dan dropped off a ham and Swiss sandwich, which she nibbled on sporadically. Chloe didn't have much of an appetite these days, as evidenced by the five pounds she'd lost since that day at the loft. She did, however, gulp down the coffee that accompanied the sandwich. And then another two cups from the coffee machine after that.

On her third trip to the machine, Dan waved her over to his desk. "This came out of the South Bureau, Topanga Division, an hour ago," he said as he offered a sheaf of paper.

She set her mug down before skimming the new report—also from Missing Persons. But notably, it was being filed on behalf of a young girl for her missing mother. Officers estimated she might be around nine or ten years old. Chloe's heart clenched at the thought of this little girl, who must be so scared and lost.

Hairs stood on the back of her neck as Chloe read the description which seemed to match her Jane Doe. At the end was a grainy profile shot of the missing woman taken from CCTV footage. She sprinted to her desk, grabbed her case file, and ran back to Dan's desk. After arranging the crime scene photo alongside the CCTV shot, she looked to him for confirmation. She couldn't say it with 100% confidence, but the height, body shape, and clothes matched.

Dan squinted at the two photos for several seconds, before nodding.

"Where is the daughter now?"

"Still at the Starlight Inn where the report was filed. The motel manager found the girl after the room failed to check out this morning. I think there's a uniformed officer waiting with her in case the mother turns up."

Chloe quickly gathered her files and this new missing person report. "I'm heading there now."

"Okay, I'll call ahead and make sure they stay put and know to expect you."

"Thanks." She chewed on her bottom lip, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost a quarter to three.

"Do you need me to pick up Trixie?" Dan asked.

She shook her head. "No, I should be fine. Trixie's going over to Madison's after school. But I'll let you know if anything changes."

"Sounds good. Call me if you need me to take her for the night."

Despite feeling grateful, a drop of bitterness welled up inside. If only he had been this supportive when they were still married... She shook her head and spun on her heels, muttering a quiet "thanks, Dan" on her way out.

-x-x-x-

The Starlight Inn was a budget motel lying on the outskirts of Topanga State Park, an almost forty-minute drive from the station with traffic. Chloe spent a portion of the time conferring with the detective assigned to the missing person's case, who seemed more than happy to hand over the case once Chloe confirmed the missing woman as her murder victim. No new information about her victim's real identity, but surely the daughter could tell her more.

She pulled into the open parking spot next to check-in, where a 'No Vacancy' sign hung in the window. Her first stop was to speak with the motel staff and see if anyone recognized her Jane Doe as the missing mother. A bell chimed as she stepped into the office. On the far side, a beige-colored ice machine hummed loudly despite the 'Out Of Order' sign plastered across it. In one corner, she spotted a security camera aimed at the desk. She trod across the splotchy charcoal gray carpet to the check-in counter, 60s-style Formica-laminated top and all. A bored woman in her mid-forties sat on a stool, flipping through an issue of _People_.

"No vacancy," the woman said in clear dismissal, never looking away from an article featuring Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra.

Chloe slipped her badge over the spine of the open magazine.

That caught the desk clerk's attention, causing the woman to jump to her feet and lift her head to meet Chloe's eyes for the first time. "Eh, officer!"

"Detective Decker," Chloe introduced as she returned her badge to her belt. "An employee here reported an abandoned child earlier today. Would you be able to tell me more about that?"

The clerk nodded, but her brows furrowed and a pout crept across her lips. "I already told the other detective, Carnahan, everything I know."

"I'm investigating another case that I believe the mother may be related to. The LAPD would appreciate your cooperation in the matter."

The clerk sighed, refusing to shed the air of someone being inconvenienced. At least it got her talking. Chloe listened closely and took notes.

The woman and her daughter had checked in a week ago under the name Robin Yeats. There was no telling if that was her real name or not, but at least it wasn't as impersonal and as cold as Jane Doe. They paid up for the week in advance with cash, which was a red flag in this day and age. They needed to either extend their stay or check out as of eleven this morning. When Robin didn't do either, the clerk followed up by going straight to the room. No one answered no matter how loudly or long she knocked, so she used the master key to unlock the door. That was when the clerk discovered the girl.

"She wouldn't say anything. Not where her mother was. Not how long she'd been gone. So I figured she'd been abandoned or whatever and called you guys," the clerk finished with a shrug.

Something about the woman's lack of empathy set Chloe's teeth on edge. Chloe sped through the rest of her questions, eager to check on the young girl. The rest of the information the clerk provided fit Chloe's timeline of the murder: Robin was last seen two days ago, mere hours before she died.

Finally, Chloe showed the clerk a photo of her Jane Doe, the shot tightly framed on the dead woman from the neck up on a metal slab. "Is this Robin Yeats?" she asked, simultaneously dreading and hoping.

The clerk's eyes widened. "Yes! Yes! That's her! Oh my God, is she dead?"

The positive ID compounded Chloe's need to check on the little girl. Robin's daughter had been alone for over 46 hours, locked away in a motel room. "Thank you for your time."

Chloe stopped by her car to put away her case files. None of the photos inside were fit to show to the victim's child. As she leaned against the hood, she took a moment to gather her composure and send a text to Trixie. She had been reluctant to give Trixie her own cellphone at first. But it made sense given her and Dan's jobs and their work hours. Her daughter replied immediately; her message bookended by an angel emoji. Reading Trixie's message eased the anxiety swimming through Chloe's veins.

Before approaching the motel room, she freed her hair from its ponytail, letting the tresses cascade over her shoulders. She considered leaving her blazer behind in the car too, but there was a limit to how far she could dress down when another officer was present. She knocked twice on the door, once painted a sky blue that had faded to an almost gray after years of direct exposure to the sun.

A uniform officer answered, and Chloe had her badge ready.

"Detective Decker, I'm Officer Rollins," a fresh-faced man, probably a recent academy graduate, greeted her. "Detective Carnahan told me you were coming over."

"Is she here?"

Rollins nodded and stepped back, opening the door all the way for Chloe. At first glance, the room's interior was as worn as the rest of the motel with colors and styling still stuck in the 60s. But it was clean and safe. The furnishing consisted of a short bureau, an uncomfortable armchair shoved into a corner, and the full-sized bed that took up most of the space. The LCD TV sitting on top of the bureau was the most modern amenity in the entire room. A young girl, Robin's daughter, sat on top of the mattress.

From her vibrant green eyes to her auburn hair, the child took after her mother's looks. She'd looked up from her paperback as soon as Chloe entered the room. She maintained a wary and thoughtful expression, out of place for someone so young, but didn't hide when Chloe approached.

"Hey there, sweetie," Chloe stopped a foot away from the bed and smiled. "I'm Detective Decker, and I'm with the police."

The girl's jaw dropped, and she gaped at Chloe with wide, saucer eyes. Her bold-faced shock caught Chloe by surprise, who knew she looked more ragged than not these days. But was it so obvious that even a child noticed? Chloe opened her mouth to continue her introduction.

But the girl spoke first with a voice as sweet and crisp as wind chimes. "You're glowing."

What?

The girl gasped, then clasped her hands to her mouth. She bowed her head while her hair fell over her face.

Officer Rollins stepped up to Chloe's side. "Wow, that's the first thing I've heard her say. Hadn't heard a peep out of her all afternoon. Won't tell me her name or anything."

It hadn't escaped Chloe's notice how the girl tensed when Rollins approached. Several possibilities presented themselves: the girl was afraid of strangers, policemen, or men. None of which bode well for convincing her to open up to Chloe.

"I heard from the clerk she's been alone for the last two days. It's almost dinnertime. Officer Rollins, can I trouble you to get something for her? Maybe start with a sandwich, juice, and a cookie?"

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the girl peek out from under her bangs. An eager look flashed across her face at the mention of food.

"You hungry there, kid?" Rollins addressed the girl, but she lowered her gaze immediately. The officer deflated at her lack of reaction and addressed Chloe instead. "Sure thing, detective. Uh, guess I'll head for the nearby Panera. Best of luck with her."

Rollins quickly saw himself out, leaving Chloe alone with the little girl. Chloe lowered herself to the floor, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. From her new position, she caught sight of a large pendant hanging around the girl's neck. She couldn't see any details beyond its circular shape before the girl lowered her head and her hair covered it. "You can call me Chloe. What's your name?"

The girl bit her lower lip, eyes darting between Chloe's face and the book in her lap. Still, she said nothing.

Chloe tried another angle of attack. "I see you're reading. Can I see the title? Maybe I've read it before."

After a moment of hesitation, the girl lifted her book and flashed the cover: _Coraline_ by Neil Gaiman.

"Oh!" Chloe exclaimed with glee. "Coraline is one of Trixie's favorites too. Trixie's my daughter. She turned nine this year. You two are probably around the same age."

The girl raised her hands and fanned all ten of her fingers out. For a second, a proud light flashed through her eyes.

"You're ten then?" Chloe asked. "And you're already reading Coraline on your own? That's very impressive."

The girl nodded, chest slightly puffed out. Her hair fell to the side, giving Chloe a clearer view of the girl's pendant, which was almost the size of her palm. It was made of a silvery metal, inscribed with symbols and the image of a pot? Or was it a cauldron?

Chloe moved closer to the edge of the bed. She had never seen metal polished to such a prismatic shine before. She reached out and only caught herself a hairsbreadth short of touching it. Warmth flooded her fingertips, quickly followed by a tingle of static that coursed up the length of her arm. She dropped her hand and sat back on her heels. "Your necklace is beautiful. Did your mother give it to you?"

The girl flinched at the mention of her mother. As she scooted back across the sheets to put distance between herself and Chloe, she clutched her necklace protectively to her chest.

Chloe winced. Okay, one step forward, then three steps back. She couldn't give up though. But try as she might, she couldn't convince the girl to utter a single word. The girl understood the questions based on how her intelligent eyes would study Chloe after each question. But she made no further attempts to respond verbally or through sign language.

She dropped her face into her hands, sighing heavily. Silence settled between them as she considered her options. At this current rate, there was no way to broach the subject of Robin Yeats. How could she tell this skittish girl that her mother was never coming back to her? There was no helping it now. After Officer Rollins came back and the girl hopefully ate, Chloe would take her back to the station. If they couldn't locate another family member, she'd turn her over to CFS in the meantime.

A knock on the door interrupted Chloe's train of thought. Ah, that must be Officer Rollins now. She climbed to her feet and strode across the room to let him in.

"Wait!" the girl called behind Chloe as she opened the door.

The man standing on the other side was not Officer Rollins. He was several inches shorter than Rollins, with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and a surgical mask obscuring the lower half of his face. The only details Chloe caught were the wisp of brown hair poking out from under the brim and his dark brown eyes burning with malice.

"Who—"

An ear-splitting bang—the acrid scent of gunpowder shattered the rest of her question. Chloe took two stumbling steps back, unblocking the entrance despite her better judgment, clutching her stomach. Wetness coated her fingers, slicking her palms. Then, as if someone else now controlled her body, she watched as red bloomed across the front of her blouse. She knew this feeling. This had happened to her before.

She was shot.

With that, her legs gave out under her. Her gun. She needed to draw her weapon. But her fingers spasmed uselessly, refusing to obey. The girl's voice, so previously clear and sweet, turned hoarse from the never-ending screaming. A shadow fell over Chloe, blocking out what little light she could make out. No, the assailant was entering the room. He headed toward the girl.

"Stop," Chloe croaked, unable to draw enough air into her lungs.

Still, she uncurled her hands from where they fisted in the carpet's long fibers and curled her numb fingers around the ankle. The assailant paused, sneakers hovering inches to the side of Chloe's head. With a slight shake of his leg, he dislodged her grip and stepped over her without a second glance.

Another gunshot sounded, branding the smell of sulfur and charcoal into her nostrils. Then there was nothing.

She was nothing but light.

-x-x-x-

Chloe's eyes snapped open. The first thing she saw was her sun-speckled ceiling. The first thing she heard was the pop song blaring from her clock radio.

_"I can't turn back the currents of time,_  
_ Every day keeps rushing forward."_

But she couldn't forget. She couldn't rid herself of the sensations: the life draining out of her, her fading consciousness, hopelessness choking the air out of her...

All the sensations of... Dying. Death.

In the background, the song on the radio continued, blind to her building panic.

_"I can't afford to stand still and wait,_  
_ As for the two of us?_  
_ Only time will tell…"_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2/8  
Loops 2 and 3

It was a dream. No, a nightmare—one so vivid that sent her heart racing and her pulse pounding.

Chloe stood in front of the mirror and pulled up her pajama top to reveal unblemished skin. Other than her nearly decade-old stretch marks, her stomach was as smooth and unmarred as she remembered. No scars or other signs of injuries, unlike the puckered, knotted skin commemorating the time Jimmy almost took her life.

At least it wasn't a repeat of the other nightmares that plagued her lately. The ones featuring Marcus' cloying embrace or Hellfire burning through a familiar pair of chocolate brown eyes. Yeah, she could work with a pedestrian nightmare about dying on the job.

-x-x-x-

While sipping from her Starbucks cup, she strolled out of the elevator and onto the mezzanine. As she passed Ella and Officer Engles, she muttered a quiet "good morning," which Ella returned with her usual enthusiasm. Officer Engles nodded in acknowledgment. Dan appeared soon after she settled with her current case file, Jane Doe, spread across her desk. They made conversation about their respective cases for another few minutes. As she focused on work, the tension unfurled in her shoulders.

BANG!

Chloe sprung from her seat, arms jolting up and upending her coffee over her front.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Ella exclaimed. At the other end of the bullpen, she flew down the stairs to retrieve her box and its contents now strewn across the floor.

Hands shaking, Chloe lowered her coffee cup onto her desk and took several steadying breaths. "Excuse me," she said to Dan. "I'm going to clean this up."

In the ladies' restroom, she wrenched the cold water faucet on and pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser. She pushed all other thoughts out of her head and focused on dabbing the coffee from her work slacks.

Thank God she chose black today. The stains shouldn't be too noticeable once they dried. Her blouse was a lost cause though. She did her best with the tools at hand, finishing by buttoning up her blazer to hide the remaining stain.

She gripped the porcelain sides of the sink. Even now, her hands trembled. "Pull it together, Decker."

No time to fall to pieces. She may be a nobody in the grand scheme of the universe, but there were people that depended on her.

She forced herself to leave the restroom and return to her desk. But time and time again, an inescapable sense of déjà vu seized her by the shoulders and shook her composure loose. Sometimes it was triggered by an overly familiar report detail. Once it was Karen, the floor's administrator, announcing her engagement/pregnancy. Each time, Chloe talked herself back from the metaphorical edge.

A lot of missing person reports read the same; the details and names compiled according to procedure. As for Karen, she had been putting on weight for several weeks now. Chloe must have picked up on the signs and incorporated it into last night's dream. And as for Karen's new fiancé, everyone in the bullpen knew Officer Lee was head-over-heels in love with her.

Everything had a reasonable explanation.

She jumped when a ham and Swiss sandwich and a cup of coffee appeared at her elbow. Lifting her head, she directed her deer-in-the-headlights look at Dan.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Why what?"

She gritted her teeth, then snapped, "Why ham and cheese?"

Dan looked at her with a furrowed brow. "That's your favorite. Did you want something else?"

She felt ridiculous. Dan was right. She always got the ham and Swiss sandwich from the break room vending machine. Dan, being both her ex and her colleague, had noted of her tastes and chosen accordingly. No great mystery. Just common sense. Feeling appropriately chagrined, she muttered her thanks and busied herself with lunch.

For several moments, Dan didn't move, studying her with a concerned look in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she shot him a finely-edged glower that shut him down. To her relief, he wandered away, shaking his head.

As soon as he was out of sight, Chloe dropped the sandwich and pulled her keyboard close. Navigating to the police search database, she typed in her badge number and password. In the search fields for first and last names, she entered "Robin" and "Yeats" respectively. The database kicked back a dozen results. She perused every one, staring long and hard at the attached DMV or arrest photos.

None of them were her Jane Doe.

Was she relieved or disappointed by the lack of results?

-x-x-x-

Her stomach dropped as soon as Dan approached, waving a sheaf of papers.

"Chloe, I got something that might be related to your case." Oblivious to her dread, he continued, "This came out of the South Bureau, Topanga Division, an hour ago."

Chloe knew the details of the report before reading it: a young girl missing her mother abandoned at the Starlight Inn outside Topanga State Park. From the station to the motel, she spent 45 minutes on the road, having nearly the same conversation with Carnahan, the lead detective on the case. She parked in the open spot by the office. Through the window with its "No Vacancy" sign, Chloe spotted the bored clerk flipping through her copy of _People_.

She killed the engine and bent forward to rest her head against the steering wheel. This had gone far beyond déjà vu. It was... It was... She didn't know what was happening except it wasn't natural.

Her hands dropped to her stomach, where her buttoned-up blazer covered her coffee-stained blouse. In her dream, the stain was her blood.

Did she have a premonition? A prophetic dream? Was it a warning?

After climbing out of the driver's seat, she left behind her case files and went straight to her trunk. If her dream was a warning, she'd be a fool to go in unprepared. Shedding her blazer, she donned her bullet-proof vest before checking her sidearm. Afterward, she buttoned her jacket as high as possible, but her vest still peeked out between the vee of her lapel.

Chloe turned away from the check-in desk and headed straight toward the room. She knocked firmly twice.

A familiar face opened the door. "Detective Decker, I'm—"

"Officer Rollins," she cut him off, pulse pounding in her ears. She flashed her badge in afterthought.

Rollins blinked in surprise before stepping back to allow her into the room. "Uh, yeah. Detective Carnahan told me to expect you."

Her gaze went straight to the red-headed child sitting on top of the bed. Wide green eyes stared back, but she didn't recognize Chloe any more than Rollins.

Rollins sidled up to her. "Hadn't heard a peep out of her all afternoon. Won't tell me her name or anything."

By now, the hairs on the back of Chloe's neck stood on end. Her déjà vu had morphed into a full-blown dread. She couldn't shake the feeling, nor could she take her eyes off the child when she addressed Rollins. "I'm taking her back to the Hollywood station. I've confirmed that her mother's related to my case."

"Are we sure? What if someone else comes looking for her?"

Then with her back to the child, she lowered her voice. "The best thing we can do is to locate other family members. There's no point waiting here any longer."

"Poor girl," Rollins sighed, glancing over Chloe's shoulder. "What about their belongings? Detective Carnahan already looked through their suitcases earlier. Found nothing of interest though."

Sure enough, two roller suitcases stood in the far corner behind the bed.

"I'll take them with." Just because Carnahan found nothing of interest didn't mean Chloe won't. At a minimum, the girl needed a change of clothes.

"I can load—"

"I can't leave." The child's quiet words startled both Chloe and Rollins, who shared an incredulous glance.

"Why's that?" Chloe asked. When she got no reply, she added, "Did your mom tell you that?"

The girl remained silent, staring at the motel room door with naked dread. Chloe thought of her phantom gunman. Was he Robin's murderer? Was he also targeting the daughter? Had both mother and daughter known their lives were in danger? If so, they were sitting ducks here.

"We're going to a police station. You'll be safe there," cajoled Chloe.

But the girl appeared unconvinced.

"Officer Rollins, can you move the suitcases out to my cruiser? It's the Dodge Charger by check-in." She tossed her car keys to the officer.

"Uh, sure thing."

Chloe waited until he left before approaching the girl. "Sweetie, we have to go. It's not safe here."

The girl shook her head vigorously, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "No, I have to wait for Mommy to get me. She told me to wait for her."

Chloe's heart broke at the sight. "Your mother's not coming to pick you up. Please believe me. The sooner we leave this place, the safer you'll be."

"No!"

As she opened her mouth to retort, ready to bodily haul the girl out of the room if need be, several loud bangs sounded from the parking lot. Chloe grabbed the girl around her shoulders, dragged her off the bed, and pressed them flat against the carpet.

Those were gunshots. Multiple gunshots.

"Stay here," she ordered. "Don't move."

The girl sobbed in response.

Crawling across the floor, Chloe made her way to the windows overlooking the motel parking lot. She pulled out her cellphone, turned on the front-facing camera, hit record, and poked it out over the ledge and under the marigold curtains. With the help of her phone, she saw the prone body, clad in an officer's uniform with sandy blond hair, lying facedown on the asphalt. Two roller suitcases had fallen over the body. Rollins didn't stir.

Another darkly clothed figure peeled away from the SUV parked across the lot, carrying a firearm she couldn't see clearly from this angle. Baseball cap. Blue surgical mask. Dark clothes. It was her dream/phantom gunman.

She wasted no time dialing dispatch. "This is Detective Chloe Decker, badge number 26435. 10-71 at the Starlight Inn, uh, 1101 Topanga Canyon Blvd. Officer down. Urgently requesting a bus and backup."

"How many suspects?"

"One."

"10-4. Relaying nearby units to your location—" The sound of shattering glass and more gunfire soon drowned out the rest of dispatch's response.

She dropped her phone and crawled back to the girl. "Sweetie, go into the bathroom, lock the door, and get in the bathtub. Can you do that?"

The door wouldn't hold indefinitely even when locked, but it would buy more time. She just needed to buy enough time for backup.

"I can't!" the girl sobbed, clinging to Chloe.

She scooped up the girl and made a run for the ensuite bathroom. She pried the girl's hands from around her neck and set her down on the tile floor. As she tried to push her further into the bathroom, a loud thud came from behind her.

The gunman was trying to kick in the front door. Crunch—that was the wood splintering and giving way.

Chloe was out of time. She knew that for a fact, even as she fumbled for her gun. Both she and the girl were far too exposed. As she freed her firearm from its holster, the first shot slammed into the base of her spine, knocking the wind out of her. She staggered, grabbing the doorframe with her free hand for support.

She needed to stay on her feet. She had a vest. The poor girl did not.

The second bullet hit her in her right shoulder, inches off where Jimmy shot her. Dark spots danced across her vision. Each impact forced the air from her lungs in a raspy gasp, making it impossible to breathe.

With one final burst of strength, she shoved the girl back into the bathroom and slammed the door. "Stay away from the door!" she bellowed and prayed the girl would do as instructed.

She pushed off from the doorframe, and the third bullet winged Chloe in the arm. The sudden shock and pain caused her to lose grip on her weapon and her knees to buckle. Her bones rattled when her knees hit the floor.

She didn't want to die. Her vest was nearly useless at this stage. Backup wouldn't arrive in time. The heavy footsteps behind her advanced with the inevitability of Death itself.

"Please, you don't have to do this," she begged, eyes and throat squeezed shut.

An unseen force slammed into the back of her skull.

Her eyes snapped open to the familiar sight of her own bedroom ceiling as a marching band trampled across her brain matter. She blinked for several long moments before the black spots dancing in her vision cleared. With hands fisted in her sheets, she stared up at the ceiling, too terrified of the blackness lurking behind closed eyelids, and swallowed the scream lodged in her throat.

-x-x-x-

Despite the duvet wrapped around her shoulders, she shivered uncontrollably while groping around for tissues. She barely paid attention as the last chords of the song on the radio faded.

"That was Delilah's 'Time Will Tell', also the title track for the 2014 movie of the same name," the DJ said, full of undeserved cheer. "Today marks the third anniversary of her untimely passing."

A second DJ cut in. "I passed Lux the other day, where fans have been leaving memorial offerings all week."

"It just goes to show how loyal her fans are even to this day. On a related note, there'll be a gathering at Plummer Park later this evening to celebrate Delilah's life and music. Here on 102.7 KIISFM, we'll be playing more of her music on the hour so stay tuned."

Chloe switched off the radio, then pulled her blankets tighter. Three years. It'd been three years to the day since Delilah was gunned down in front of a Hollywood nightclub. It was three years to the day that Chloe Decker first met Lucifer Morningstar.

She powered on her phone screen to double, then triple-check the date. Her phone slipped from her numb hands, bouncing twice on the mattress before falling onto the floor. She didn't even notice.

March 20th. Again.

For the third time.

She wasn't dreaming. Did she really die twice? What was happening? Why was the day repeating?

Why?

Why?

Why?!

She pulled the covers over her head and curled into a ball. She struggled to breathe already. What difference did suffocating under her duvet make? None. Because she'd die again. Would she wake up in bed afterward? During one moment caught between clarity and hysteria, she thought to test her theory.

Her shivering never subsided, but her body grew hot until beads of sweat dripped down her jaw. Too much! Too hot!

She threw off the blanket and raced into her bathroom. Every breath she took was a stab in her chest—jabbed needles in her throat like a pincushion. Her blood pounded in her ears, loud enough to drown out every thought except for one: It's happening again. I'm dying.

Chloe never made it to the shower, her head spinning so much that she couldn't stand straight. She slowly sank to the floor. The cool tile was both a shock and a relief against her flushed skin. When stars danced across her vision, she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a sob.

This wasn't a nightmare. She was awake and trapped in what can only be described as "Hell on earth."

Trixie pounding on her bedroom door finally brought Chloe back to herself. She didn't know how long she had been lying on the bathroom floor. Pushing back the damp locks plastered against her forehead, she cringed at how her pajamas stuck to her skin.

"I'll be down in a sec, monkey," she croaked.

"Okay, Mommy," responded Trixie after a pregnant pause, but she didn't sound reassured.

Chloe's limbs dragged as she climbed to her feet with the aid of the bathroom vanity. Her muscles quivered like jelly, and she doubted she'd muster enough strength to even get dressed. But the thought of Trixie waiting and worrying downstairs forced her through the grueling routine, even as her arms burned from the strain and her head pounded. Unable to give it any extra thought, she donned the same outfit worn in previous loops.

By the time she went downstairs, Trixie was fully dressed and eating a bowl of milk and cereal at the kitchen island. Her feet thumped against the side of the island. Chloe should scold her... Trixie's gaze tracked her as she crossed the kitchen and dug through the fridge. Thanks to Chloe's meltdown, they needed to be out the door in ten minutes. She'll drop Trixie off at her school and then... And then...

"Mommy?"

Chloe jumped and released the fridge door, which almost swung fully shut under its own weight. She pressed one hand to the door and her other hand to her racing heart. Swallowing the bile gathering in the back of her throat, she breathed deeply before turning to address her daughter with a watery smile, "What is it, monkey?"

Trixie peered up at her. Suspicion was the most dominant expression on her face. "Is everything alright? Did something happen?" Then with widening eyes and a voice that began to tremble, she asked, "Did something happen to Daddy?"

Helpless in the face of her daughter's fear and her own guilt, Chloe swept her little girl into a tight hug. "Daddy's fine. I'm... I'm feeling a little sick is all."

"Oh." Trixie's tiny voice was almost lost in the folds of Chloe's jacket. But she wound her growing arms around Chloe's neck and returned the hug.

Chloe's breath hitched as the memory of another little girl cradled in her arms hit her with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. Robin's daughter may be a year older than Trixie, but she was nearly the same height and weight as Chloe's daughter. Chloe held Trixie for a while longer, running her fingers through her daughter's dark, loose curls. Trixie didn't smell like wildflowers. She didn't cry and wail, fists wrinkling Chloe's blazer and shaking in abject terror. No, that little girl was alone in a motel room and just as worried about her mother.

Though Chloe's limbs lacked their usual surety, she had to keep going. Chloe had another chance to save her. She refused to fail.

-x-x-x-

Chloe upgraded to a triple-shot espresso, which she drank in its entirety on the drive to the station. She power-walked past Ella and Officer Engels on the mezzanine. But when she took the first step down, she made a sharp u-turn and doubled back.

"Hey, Ella," she butted into the conversation with a polite smile that strained her facial muscles. "Want me to take that for you?"

"Thanks, Decker, but I got it," Ella replied with a spring in both her voice and her ponytail.

"Really, it's no trouble," she insisted, already reaching past the two of them to grab the other end of the box. "Leave it in the lab?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks."

Chloe hefted the box and swiftly exited the conversation. Without looking back, she strolled past the lieutenant's office, past Dan's desk, then her own until she reached the forensics lab. She set the box of files on the center table cleared of the evidence and test equipment Chloe was used to seeing. While leaning against the table, she took several deep breaths.

"Hey, Decker? You okay?"

She jumped several inches off the ground. With one hand clutched to her chest, she spun to face Ella. "I'm fine," she lied.

A frown spread across Ella's face like clouds blocking out the sun. "Dude, you totally spaced there. I called you like three times. You sure you're okay?"

No, Chloe wasn't fine. She wasn't okay by any definition of the word. She was losing her mind or stuck repeating the same day over and over. Because if Ella or anyone had noticed that March 20th never seemed to end, they'd say something. Right?

Fighting off the same panic she became acquainted with earlier _this _morning, Chloe proceeded cautiously. "Do you ever feel trapped solving a problem?"

"Sure, doesn't everyone?" Ella shrugged. "Is that what's eating at you? You're stuck on the case? I can try and help."

"No, like literally trapped. And when you fail, you have to start over from the beginning and all the progress you've made…" Chloe trailed off, unsure how to elaborate without sounding completely insane.

Ella's face brightened. "Oh! You mean a time loop! Like in _Cause and Effect_!"

"Cause and effect?"

"It's this TNG episode, you know, _Star Trek_. So get this, the _Enterprise _crew end up stuck in a time loop because their ship collides with another ship near a spatial anomaly they're investigating. Every time their ship was destroyed, they restarted the day."

That...sounded a lot like Chloe's current predicament. "How did they escape?"

"It took a while. None of the crew knew they were repeating the same day at first. Nobody directly remembered anything between the loops. But eventually, they realized they were stuck and Data realized he could send a message to himself in the next loop. Because of that, they're able to save the ship and escape!"

Ella's explanation helped Chloe work through her own conclusions. Every time she died, she reset. And each time she died trying to rescue the girl from the motel. But what if this wasn't her third time? What if this had happened many, many times, and she hadn't realized it until much later like the characters in Ella's story?

"So why the sudden interest?" Ella hovered closer, peering curiously into Chloe's face.

Chloe tried to step back but collided with the edge of the lab table. She racked her brain for an excuse. "It's nothing," she flashed a weak smile. "Trixie's working on a short story for school. I thought I'd ask you since you have an interest in that kinda thing. Thanks."

"No prob! Let her know she can hit me up if she's got other questions!" chirped Ella.

Chloe's conscience twinged. Lying was preferable to getting committed though. With a final thanks, she excused herself from Ella's lab.

Ella hadn't dropped her files from the mezzanine overhead. It was small, but Chloe could effect change. If she could do that, she could still help Robin's daughter and bring Robin's killer to justice. Maybe then she would stop repeating the day. She squared her shoulders, straightened, and marched back to her desk to begin the day's work.

First, Chloe called in a favor with her contact in Missing Persons, asking to be notified ASAP on any new reports that might fit her victim. Hopefully, she'd be able to catch it as soon as the call from the motel staff came in, without needing Dan to alert her to it an hour later. That should give her a head-start.

If the gunman had arrived before her, he should have made his move long before Chloe arrived. So as soon as she arrived at the motel, she'd take the girl, put her straight into the cruiser, and leave.

With a plan in mind, she turned her attention to investigating the gunman. She had neither physical evidence nor facts to build upon. Right now, he'd yet to kill Chloe or the girl. But there was a non-negligible possibility that the gunman was connected to Robin Yeats' death. Whether he was her killer, an accomplice, or something else remained to be seen.

By the time she got the call about the Starlight Inn, she had made little progress in identifying the gunman. She didn't wait for the report before getting into her car. With her sirens blaring, she roared down long stretches of road at speeds Lucifer might approve of. She arrived nearly an hour and a half earlier than she'd ever arrived. Clad in her bullet-proof vest and with her weapon drawn, she did a meticulous sweep of the parking lot, searching for any suspicious figures. No black SUVs so far and every other vehicle was devoid of occupants.

She had beaten the gunman here.

After holstering her sidearm, she jogged over to the motel room and bulldozed through her introduction to both Officer Rollins and the little girl. When the little girl objected to leaving as she did last time, Chloe swept her off her feet and marched her out of the room while ignoring her screaming protests. After depositing the girl in the backseat, buckling her in, and locking the doors, she returned for the mother/daughter's luggage and to warn Rollins about the possibility of a gunman headed their way.

Although bewildered by the warning, Rollins promised to rendezvous with his patrol partner and to monitor the motel just in case.

Despite her continued agitation and desire to get as far away from the motel as possible, she forced herself to drive slower. There were a few tricky curves on this part of Topanga Canyon Blvd. Chloe took one look at the frightened child in the back and forewent the sirens. The noise might scare her and cause her to retreat further into herself. The girl no longer screamed, reverting to her silent state with an added note of sulking. Chloe tried engaging the child as they made their way down the empty highway. The girl remained mute, resistant to all cajoling and bribery.

Eventually, Chloe gave up. Silence reigned inside the car. She considered the radio but experienced a moment of queasiness when lyrics popped into her head unaided: "I can't turn back the currents of time, every day keeps rushing forward." Instead, she focused on the road ahead and the safety that waited at the end.

As they approached a stretch of highway cutting through the southern end of the state park, a black SUV rounded the bend behind her and crept ever closer. Alarm bells sounded inside Chloe's head. With a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, she kept one eye on her rearview mirror as she addressed the girl, "Sweetie, I'm going to speed up. Hold on tight."

She dropped her foot on the accelerator, ignoring the speedometer as she tried to put distance between them and the SUV. But the SUV didn't relent. As she sped up, its engines roared to match her speed.

Shit, she wasn't just being paranoid, was she?

She called dispatch after momentarily fumbling with her console. "Detective Chloe Decker, badge number 26435. I need a run on a California license plate number Nine-Ida-Young-Mary-Six—Shit!"

So intent on reading off the license number, Chloe missed a sharp curve in the road ahead of them. She slammed the brakes and wrenched the wheel to avoid a head-on collision with the railing. The wheels spun out under them as they skidded to a stop, now perpendicular to the road. Before she could catch her breath, the black SUV rammed into the tail-end of her cruiser.

The force pitched her cruiser onto its side. The girl screamed. They teetered precariously for a second before momentum won out. They lurched. She screamed again. Then they rolled and rolled and rolled until Chloe lost track of how many times. As she began to black out, she feared she would wake up in her bed again. But her body hurt far too much, dust clouded her lungs, and the silence from her backseat rang louder than the tinnitus in her ears. It took several moments, if not minutes, to get her bearings, disoriented by the crash. Beyond the cracked windshield, she saw only the sandy face of a hillside, dotted with stubby clumps of grass and patchy bushes. The car had landed upside-down.

"Sweetie?" she coughed.

Her answer came in the form of a cut-off sob. Still alive. Thank God.

"Can you undo your seatbelt?" she asked.

Once again, the girl only cried.

She thrust one hand down against the roof of the car, wincing when she cut her palm on shattered glass. She reached up with her other hand to grope for the seatbelt release. But her fingers slid uselessly across the release button, slick and wet with must be more blood. Her head spun as she struggled to catch her breath, and her vision narrowed and darkened along the edges. Okay, she was definitely bleeding more than she'd hoped.

Phone. Her phone. She'd call for help on her phone.

She gave up on the seatbelt in the meantime. But when she craned her neck, she bit back a scream as a pain lanced down her back. She couldn't see the console around the deployed airbag now pinning her in place. Groping blindly, her fingers came into contact with an empty phone mount. It wasn't there. The collision must have knocked it loose. She had been on a call with dispatch before they crashed. They'd use GPS to locate them and send help.

"It'll be okay," Chloe muttered to no one in particular.

Something snapped to her left. Footsteps crunched against the soil and gravel. Even before a cursed pair of sneakers came into view, Chloe knew it wasn't help. The gunman who ran them off the road rounded the upturned cruiser, past Chloe toward the rear of the car. Metal screeched as he tried to open one of the rear doors. No. Not this time too.

"Hey! You leave her alone!" she screamed.

Outside the car, the gunman stopped tugging on the door.

Chloe continued; every razor-sharp word cut across her raw throat, "You're a coward! Targeting a child like this!"

More crunching followed as he moved around to the front of the cruiser, then he stopped right next to Chloe.

"No, you're worse than a coward. You're the lowest scum to have ever crawled across this earth. There's a special place in Hell for child killers like you," Chloe said the last part with near 100% confidence. If the Devil was real, so was Hell. And if there was any cosmic justice left in this universe, this man will burn for an eternity.

A flash of a muzzle and sunlight glinting off gunmetal were her only warnings.

-x-x-x-

_"I can't turn back the currents of time,  
Every day keeps rushing forward."_

She jackknifed out of bed, grabbed her clock radio, ripping the cord from its socket. Then she flung it with all her strength, smashing the device to pieces against her bedroom wall. In the wake of its destruction, the only sound that prevailed was Chloe's panting breaths.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3/8  
Loop 4A

Chloe was a police officer. Her duty was to serve and protect. Child or not, she couldn't ignore someone in danger. It went against every bone and fiber in her being. Whatever heaven and hell might mean for a nobody like Chloe Decker, she was accountable to herself and her conscience first.

She squeezed her eyes shut and counted backward from ten. So began attempt number four...

-x-x-x-

Following police procedure had not helped her the last three times. Waiting for the call to come in only slowed her down. Police investigations lived and died by protocol, which left Chloe with a choice both difficult and breathtakingly easy to make.

After dropping Trixie early at school, Chloe stopped by the station long enough to clock in, make an appearance for her ever-watchful lieutenant, and retrieve her case file. On her way out, she told Dan she was following up on a lead.

She didn't tell him what her lead was.

The early morning drive to Topanga was peaceful compared to its afternoon counterpart. But she clutched her steering wheel tighter at every glimpse of a black SUV with a California license plate, namely every other vehicle on the road. She arrived at the motel in one piece. Even at this hour, the "No Vacancy" hung on the front window. Did the desk clerk ever take it down? Or was it a shield against doing actual work?

She once again swept through the parking lot and around the motel's perimeter on the lookout for the gunman. Surely, he wasn't already here. Even though her search turned up nothing, she didn't let down her guard.

Inside the check-in office, she flashed her badge at the clerk before requesting access to Robin Yeats' room. She had no warrant, and she had neither the reason nor the time to get one. The clerk hemmed and hawed until Chloe broke out the photo of her murder victim. That combined with a pointed question asking about Robin Yeats' daughter finally convinced the clerk to act.

Together, they shuffled to Robin's room at the other end of the building. Apparently, Robin had requested it. In front of the faded blue door, Chloe brushed a hand against her holstered weapon. It hadn't helped her much in the last few loops, but she'd rather have it than not.

After opening the door, the clerk moved to one side, wringing hands nervously and not daring to peer inside. Chloe strolled in, cataloging the now-familiar interior. A small lump under the bed's comforter caught her attention. She approached it on light feet, hoping to not scare the young girl, but the lump quivered when she stopped at the bedside.

"Hi there, sweetie," she greeted while drawing deep from her experiences with a sick or frightened Trixie. "I'm Chloe. Nice to meet you."

No sound or further movement came from the lump. Chloe picked up one corner of the paisley duvet, then crouched down to peer underneath. The girl's eyes glinted like uncut emeralds in the dimness.

"I'm with the police. I'm here to help you," Chloe continued gently, reaching a hand under the covers and resting it palm up at the edge of the mattress.

Slowly, the girl traced the edge of Chloe's hands with her small fingers. Chloe held still, trying not to frighten her any further.

"I believe you," the girl said as she finally slipped her hand into Chloe's.

-x-x-x-

"You're sure this girl is related to your vic?" The new lieutenant cast a skeptical look across the bullpen and into the conference room where Chloe had left the girl with Ella.

Chloe nodded stiffly and willed the conversation to finish faster. She hadn't set foot into this office since Marcus was still alive and in charge. "The motel staff identified the woman who checked in with her as our Jane Doe. She checked in under Robin Yeats, but I found no official records under that name. It's most likely a fake name."

Lieutenant Grieve hummed softly and turned on his heels to scrutinize Chloe again. "And what led you to her?"

She swallowed thickly before replying, "A source. I'm not at liberty to save who for now."

She couldn't tell her boss about a time loop.

Grieve narrowed his eyes. "This source wouldn't be your civilian consultant, would it?" His every syllable was drenched in disapproval.

Chloe froze but her heart now hammered at the mention of her former partner. "No, sir. I promise it's not Lucifer."

"Good. If you can't get the girl's identity sorted out by three, she goes to CFS." Grieve turned his back in clear dismissal.

She nodded and made a swift escape, heading straight to the conference room. Ella and the girl sat facing each other with their hands hanging in the middle of a clap. They both looked up when Chloe entered. The conference table's surface was littered with the wrapper remains for a sandwich and a cookie, and a juice box. At Chloe's small smile, the girl returned a hesitant one and folded her hands in her lap. Chloe took it as permission to approach.

"You guys are getting along without me," she joked.

"Nah, I was teaching her how to play Slides. By the way, you're a natural. Up top!" Ella extended one hand, palm forward.

After a second, the girl raised her hand to complete the high-five.

Ella beamed and jumped to her feet. "So what'd the lieutenant say?"

Some of her recovered mood slipped away. "He's aware of the situation. But we only have until three before contacting Children and Family Services."

"That's not a lot of time. You sure you don't want to tell us your name?" Ella winced, then asked the young girl directly.

She dropped her gaze in clear refusal. Chloe sighed. Her reticence to speak was an obstacle to the investigation, but not an unexpected one given her behavior in past loops. "Let's start with their luggage. I moved it all into the lab for better space."

The three of them moved into the forensics lab, where they planted the girl on a tall stool at the head of the lab's table. She and Ella both slipped on a pair of gloves before rummaging through the two suitcases under the girl's watchful eyes. Most of it was clothing: underwear, dresses, t-shirts, and jeans in Robin's and the girl's sizes. Nothing they found pointed to a third traveler, male or otherwise. After emptying one suitcase, Chloe felt around for a hidden pocket or ripped seam to no avail. By all appearances, this was the luggage of a mother/daughter pair on vacation.

But what she didn't find also gave her pause: namely Robin's missing identification. The police hadn't found a wallet on the body, and it wasn't in the luggage. The clerk insisted that Robin had shown a California driver's license at check-in. The clerk also couldn't recall if Robin had a car and every vehicle at the motel's parking lot was accounted for by their owners. Did that mean the killer had taken them from Robin after killing her? Was the killer trying to hide her identity or make the murder look like a strange robbery?

Chloe glanced across to Ella, who shook her head. "Nothing, huh?"

"Yeah..." Ella squinted at the pile of clothes before her. "But it's weird, don't you think?"

"What's weird?"

"There are no chargers or anything. Did you..." Ella cast a nervous look at the girl now occupied with her book, before lowering her voice and whispering, "Find a phone you know where?"

"No. You're right though. It's strange not to find an iPad or some other tablet. It's hard keeping a child entertained on the road." Chloe spoke from experience.

Ella shrugged. "I guess they could be one of those digital detox families."

Then remembering the tenacity with which the gunman came after them, Chloe added, "Or maybe they were afraid of being tracked."

With no new discoveries, they neatly repacked the suitcases and set them aside for when the girl would leave with a family member or, God forbid, CFS. Chloe said her goodbyes, thanked Ella for helping, and offered a wordless hand to the girl. The child stared for a second, before closing her book gently and taking the offered hand. Chloe helped her down from the stool and they retreated to the conference room.

-x-x-x-

Chloe closed the search window in disgust. One thousand, three hundred and sixty-six possible matches to the partial license on the black Chevy SUV from the last loop. Cross-referencing the results with the criminal database for prior offenses only narrowed the list to one hundred and eighty-three matches. Searching for her mysterious gunman was searching for a proverbial needle in a haystack.

As the day wore on, the tension lodged in the base of her spine unfurled bit by bit. Did she dare think she had broken the cycle? Well, even if that was true, she was still no closer to finding Robin Yeats' or her daughter's true identity.

With much cajoling, she convinced the motel to fax over recent records. Even though the staff was supposed to make copies, there was no record of the driver's license Robin checked in with. It didn't surprise Chloe. The staff did their work half-heartedly. She even found a random photocopy of a giant oval-shaped leaf in the pile.

Chloe stole several glances at the girl over the top of her shuffling papers. The more time she spent with the girl, the less her behavior made sense. She preferred to stick with Chloe above all others, although she allowed Ella and eventually Dan to approach her with some regularity. But she still refused to speak, answer questions, or more stunningly ask questions of her own. This was not Chloe's first time interacting with a child relative of a victim. Even drawing from her experience with Trixie and her friends, it was unnatural for a young child to be silent for so many hours at a time. It went beyond shyness.

Was it fear? Or worse, had she been abused in the past? A cursory study of her revealed none of the usual telltale signs of physical abuse, but Chloe didn't know what may be hidden under the girl's jewel-toned t-shirt and jean shorts. After all, what did it say about Robin Yeats to leave behind her daughter without supervision? Was Robin trying to protect the girl? Abandon her?

God, how was she going to break the news about her mother?

Chloe glanced at the clock on the wall, whose hands indicated it was half-past noon.

"Are you hungry?" she asked the girl. "What do you want for lunch?"

The girl only nodded.

"Another sandwich then," Chloe paused, mentally reviewing the menu for the deli down the block. "A grilled cheese sandwich and a cookie."

The girl held up two fingers.

"Okay, two cookies then."

She smiled in response then, flashing her perfect pearly whites. Lucky, this kid wouldn't need braces at all.

Chloe retrieved her wallet and blazer from her desk, asked Dan to watch the girl, and trekked to the deli. As expected, the lunch rush meant a sizable line. She recognized several detectives and officers in the line ahead of her. Chloe pulled out her phone and googled advice on getting a child to talk. Most of what she came across were fluff pieces or clickbait lists. Halfway through a promising blog post by a child psychologist, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on their end. She couldn't shake the sensation of eyes drilling into her back.

She took three measured breaths, pocketed her phone, and angled her body to her right to face the counter. Nothing suspicious so far, but the feeling she was being watched didn't go away. She pretended to study the menu boards overhead for another minute, growing more and more sure that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her. Was it?

She spun to face the shop's entrance, half-expecting to find the gunman that was rapidly becoming her personal wraith.

But she found no one. Not the gunman. Not even someone from the station.

"Ma'am."

Chloe startled, nearly falling into the person lined up in front of her.

"Your order?" the harried-looking employee behind the counter asked.

She placed her order, also picking up two chocolate-chip cookies as requested, and paid for her lunch. By the time she was handed her order in a paper bag, she had convinced herself she'd imagined it.

Mostly.

Yet as she hurried back to the station, her gaze kept darting everywhere in search of an unseen assailant. Had the gunman found them again? She sped up her walk, eager to get back to the safety of the bullpen. She couldn't breathe until she caught sight of the girl, now seated next to Dan's desk, again.

She deposited the bag on Dan's desk and prompted them to eat.

"Where are you going?" Dan asked with furrowed brows when she started to walk away.

She waved away his concern. "There's something I need to check."

Ella wasn't in her lab, probably went out for lunch. Chloe tore through both the suitcases a second time, dumping out the contents haphazardly across the lab table. Just because neither Robin nor the girl carried a phone that could be tracked didn't mean there wasn't a hidden device broadcasting their location. Was that how the gunman found them in the last loop? This was how Ella found her when she returned to the lab, half ready to tear into the suitcases' lining.

"What are you doing?" Ella asked, hovering in the doorway with an uncertain expression.

"Looking for a tracking device." Chloe flipped over the suitcase again and ran her fingers along the seams.

"Uh, why?"

"There's someone after her." Without looking up, Chloe pointed to the girl in the bullpen. "I have to make sure he can't find her. Do we have something that can detect tracking devices?"

"Yeah, lemme get it for you."

Ella soon came back with a signal detector she borrowed from Robbery's lab. They scanned the luggage and its various contents three times at Chloe's insistence, but nothing pinged.

"Are you sure? What if there's a GPS tracker or something else?" Chloe asked, desperation creeping into her words.

"I'm sure. If it's broadcasting location data, it's gotta emit a signal." Ella showed her the device's meter, which indicated it detected nothing out of the ordinary. "See? Nothing. Nada. Zilch."

"There's gotta be something. Wait, what about the pendant?!"

"Huh?"

Chloe grabbed Ella by the elbow and dragged the other woman to Dan's desk. Dan hovered silently in the background. Chloe ignored him when he tried to catch her eye. She pointed at the large pendant dangling around the girl's neck. "Check that."

"May I?" Ella bent over and asked.

The girl looked to Chloe first, then nodded slowly.

Ella leaned in to get a better look at the pendant and tapped the inscribed image lightly. "Is that a cast-iron pot or something?"

"It's not a pot," the girl protested. "It's the Cauldron of the Dagda."

Chloe was momentarily stunned. Of all the things she expected the girl to open up about, her necklace didn't rank at the top of the list.

Ella brightened in response. "Huh, cool! Where's it—"

Chloe clenched her hands into fists, digging her blunt nails into her palm. "Ella," she barked. If she didn't head off Ella's curiosity first, they could lose valuable time to address the situation.

"Right, right."

As soon as Ella waved the device over the pendant, its screen went dark.

"Huh, give me a sec. This thing's on the fritz." She slapped the sides several times before its screen flickered back to life. "Alright, go caveman IT support!"

Nothing registered on screen. The girl's necklace wasn't the answer. Chloe spun on her heels and marched into the lab again. She stared at the overturned luggage and its contents piled high on the lab table. Nothing here was the answer.

When Ella returned, it was to the scene of Chloe haphazardly shoving clothing back into the suitcases. Ella hovered by the door briefly before approaching to help. "Why are you so sure someone's tracking the kid?" she asked.

"I just know," snapped Chloe.

Resting a hand on her forearm, Ella gave it a gentle squeeze. "Seriously, what's eating you, Decker? Talk to me."

Chloe gulped, swallowed what would be a crazy-sounding diatribe about the same man killing her repeatedly. "I felt someone following me when I went to pick up lunch. They have to be after the girl. If there's no tracking device, how the hell did they find us then?"

Something flashed across Ella's face. "You sure you weren't imagining it? Sometimes I get that eyes crawling across my back kinda feel. But you know, it's all in my head. I can check again, but the results won't change."

Shame crept over Chloe. She was acting ridiculous. Just because she experienced... things... didn't mean she should abdicate all her good sense when the evidence showed otherwise. She wouldn't be able to help anyone like this. "You're right. Thanks for checking, Ella."

"No prob, what are coworkers-slash-friends for?" Ella winked and put down the scanner.

Chloe nodded gratefully to her friend and rounded the table toward the lab door. As she pulled on the handle, Ella spoke again behind her.

"Have you talked to Lucifer recently?"

Chloe gripped the door handle tighter. The metal dug into her palm. "No, why do you ask?" She internally congratulated herself on how steady she kept her voice.

Ella laughed. The sound was strangely high-pitched and wobbly. "Nothing. I was just wondering. I miss the big guy. Wonder when he's coming back."

Chloe's heart lurched at the pang of longing in Ella's voice. "That's not up to me."

"Oh, Chloe..."

-x-x-x-

"No, absolutely not." Chloe widened her stance, jutting her chin out. She shouldn't challenge her boss, but what did she have to lose anymore?

Lieutenant Grieve leveled an unimpressed look at her. "I made myself perfectly clear before Decker. She goes to CFS if we can't contact any relatives."

"But she's not going to CFS, you're putting her in a shelter!" she protested.

"CFS can't arrange a spot for her in the foster system until tomorrow. She can't spend the night here."

The foster system wasn't much better, but at least she would have been around other children her age. She would have been under the supervision of an adult meant to watch over children. A homeless shelter was no place for a girl with no adult supervision. Best-case scenario, she'd be neglected. At worst, she'd have a painted target on her back for the gunman or anyone else looking to harm her or take advantage of her. The mere thought of letting the girl out of her sight made Chloe unbelievably anxious.

"What if I take her home for the night?" Chloe put forth.

Grieve stared back. "That's highly unusual."

"You said CFS can place her tomorrow. She can stay with me tonight. Please, Lieutenant, if I can use this as a chance to build a rapport with her, it may solve this case."

Grieve wavered visibly, enticed by the possibility of solving the case sooner.

"Also, we're both parents, Lieutenant. How would you feel if someone did this to your son if God forbid, something happened to you?" added Chloe.

Grieve sighed and unfolded his arms from across his chest. "Fine, Decker. But only for tonight. She goes to CFS in the morning."

Outside the lieutenant's office, the girl sat in a chair by the door, swinging her legs back and forth while waiting. She wore a resigned expression she shouldn't have to use at her age and spoke, "You're leaving me."

Chloe crouched down to the girl's eye level and smiled softly. "Nope, you're stuck with me. At least for tonight."

The girl returned the smile with watery eyes.

-x-x-x-

"Come on in."

Eyes bright with curiosity, the girl peered around the house. While she explored, Chloe set the bag of toiletries and change of clothes, which they pulled from the girl's suitcase, on top of the kitchen island. They left the rest of the luggage at the station. Chloe wasn't comfortable moving it all back to her house, and the luggage needed to follow the girl to CFS tomorrow. The girl had even waved goodbye to both Ella and Dan, which Chloe counted as a positive development.

"Make yourself comfortable, sweetie. I'll be right back," she said before hurrying to her bedroom.

Once upstairs, she stowed her firearm in the gun safe in her closet. It was the first thing she did anytime she came home. In fact, Dan's failure to do the same resulted in many arguments during their marriage. She left her badge on top of her nightstand. She would have also liked to change out of her work clothes, but Chloe hesitated to leave the girl alone for too long.

When she returned downstairs, the girl stood in front of the wall next to Trixie's door. Chloe came to a stop at her side, eyes tracing across the rows and rows of colorful drawings, which Maze had used to paper over the knife marks in the wall. With a sudden pang of regret, Chloe wondered where her former roommate was. Had she returned to Lucifer's side? Goosebumps crept across her arm. No, Maze was a demon.

A tug on her sleeve wrenched Chloe from her reverie. The girl released the fabric and pointed to the pictures in a silent question.

"My daughter drew those," explained Chloe.

The girl cast another look around the house, then a pointed look at Trixie's bedroom door.

Chloe shook her head. "No, she's not here right now. She's over at her best friend's house. But you'll meet her later tonight if you like."

A thoughtful light filled the girl's verdant eyes. She nodded.

Chloe took the engagement, though non-verbal, as encouragement and continued, "Her name is Beatrice, but everyone calls her Trixie. She's a year younger than you but I'm sure you two will get on like a house on fire."

The girl stared up with furrowed brows and a scrunched nose.

It took several seconds before Chloe realized her mistake. "Haha, well, I'm guessing you're both similar in age. How can I know how old you are when I don't even know your name?" she laughed nervously. Chloe had no chance of convincing an adult with her act, but a child might buy it? If she hadn't even explained the situation with the girl's mother, she could hardly start with time loops.

"Morgan." Her voice was just as Chloe remembered: high and sweet, with no trace of hoarseness usually associated with not speaking for long periods.

She didn't know what shocked her more: the speaking or her volunteering her name. "Your name is Morgan?"

The girl nodded in response.

Crouched before Morgan, Chloe smiled at her. "It's very nice to meet you, Morgan. You have a beautiful name."

A dash of pink splashed across Morgan's cheeks. "I think Chloe is very pretty."

The sound of her name filled Chloe with an indescribable lightness. The sweet tones soothed the ragged edges of her psyche, drawing numbing dispassion to the surface. The rest of the world—all its worries and dangers—fell away. Morgan's eyes widened before she averted her gaze and broke the moment.

Chloe blinked sluggishly, struggling to gather her cottony thoughts. She stood and absently shaking out her numb hands, trying to restore feeling to her fingertips. "How about I put something on? You can pick something to watch while I make dinner."

Even now, Morgan refused to meet Chloe's eyes. Was she embarrassed? But she shuffled obediently to the couch while Chloe turned on the TV and brought up the "Kids" profile on her Netflix account. She spent several moments going over the controls with Morgan before leaving the girl to her own devices. Satisfied that Morgan was suitably entertained, Chloe turned her attention to her fridge and kitchen cabinets. Besides the bread and lunch meat from last week's groceries, she had several boxes of mac and cheese, a half-finished bag of frozen chicken nuggets, and leftovers from last night's Chinese takeout. The options hardly made for a feast. But children were often satisfied with a warm bowl of cheese and pasta and a plateful of nuggets.

Then again, Chloe didn't know if Morgan had any food allergies. The lack of any EpiPens in the luggage or on Morgan's person suggested nothing life-threatening.

Chloe pulled open a drawer and retrieved a stack of takeout menus, including the gluten-free vegan one she kept for whenever Trixie's friend, Klaire, came around. She carefully reviewed each menu, tuning out the auto-play trailer looping in the background. When she finally narrowed it down to several relatively healthy and hopefully delicious choices, she turned toward the living room to get Morgan's opinion.

But the child was no longer seated on the sofa.

Chloe's heart lunged into her throat. She dropped the menus, swinging wildly in a circle to find the girl. "Morgan, where are you?"

When she turned toward the front door, she spotted Morgan pressed against the front window. Chloe pressed a hand to her hammering heart and took several deep breaths. Morgan didn't respond to her name, but she tilted her head back to look at Chloe in acknowledgment. Chloe crossed the room in five long strides to reach her. She bit back the desire to scold Morgan for scaring her, and instead asked, "What are you looking at?"

Morgan pressed her nose flat against the glass, fogging it with her breath, and squinted at something in the distance. "A man."

Chloe quickly peeled back the curtains and swept her gaze up and down the street. There was nobody in sight, but unrest settled once again in her bones. She forced her voice level and casual while asking, "What did he look like?"

"I couldn't see his face. He was too bright."

Chloe gaped. "What?"

"He glowed. Like you, but brighter," Morgan stated calmly.

Come to think of it, Morgan said Chloe glowed when they first met. Maybe it was her imagination? Was she playing pretend to cope with her situation? Chloe glanced out the window and froze when she registered the black SUV parked across the street. A Chevy based on the emblem. Chloe couldn't make out the numbers on the license, but it was a California plate. Nobody on the block owned a black Chevy, and street parking in the area required a residential permit.

She told herself she wasn't being paranoid when she reached for her cell phone. First, she would request a squad car to do a quick drive-pass and check the license plate. Both leaving Morgan alone and taking her out into the open to check on the SUV were out of the question. As she finished her call with dispatch, something thumped on the second floor. Chloe's tension climbed several notches at the noise.

"Stay here," she commanded.

At the foot of the stairs, she doubled back and extracted a kitchen knife from the knife block. With the blade lowered at her side and hidden out of immediate sight, she climbed the stairs on tip-toes.

Chloe paused at the landing. The second-floor hallway stretched before her, long and foreboding; the fading light of early twilight painting unsettling shadows across the walls. The knobby knife handle dug into her sweaty palm. She readjusted her grip before stepping off the landing.

Her bedroom waited at the other end of the corridor, past the bathroom and the second bedroom. With her back planted flat against the wall, she turned the doorknob slowly and let the door fall open. She peeked around the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. The shower curtain was already drawn open to reveal an empty tub.

She moved on to the next door. But the moment she nudged the door, it creaked as it swung open. The noise made Chloe wince, simultaneously sending her pulse racing. She couldn't even recall the last time she'd entered Maze's old room. The door had remained firmly closed since the day she moved out.

Chloe glanced down the length of the hall, weighing her chances of reaching her bedroom and retrieving her gun.

She held the knife up in a stance she'd seen Maze take up before and slipped into the deserted bedroom. Maze's old furniture remained, but the mattress had long been stripped of its bed sheets and the dresser drawers emptied of their contents. She even left behind her blackout curtains, which were now pulled open to frame the open window. Maze often used it in lieu of the front door when keys proved too much of a hassle in the middle of the night...

"Maze?" she asked, half hoping and half dreading being right.

The black shape that rushed Chloe from the closet wasn't Maze though. She registered the baseball cap and dark clothes for a millisecond before he threw her back into the wall. The force of his tackle knocked down a hanging poster frame and stunned Chloe. He followed up by grabbing her hair and slamming her face-first into the dresser's edge. Pain erupted across every nerve ending and stars exploded behind her eyes. She swung her knife blindly, ignoring the wetness trickling from her nose and down the side of her face.

He howled in pain and released his death grip, dropping Chloe gracelessly to the floor. Her vision darkened dangerously. A wave of nausea swept over her. She forcibly swallowed a mouthful of bile. When she lifted her heavy head, he was gone; his heavy footfalls stomping down the hallway.

"Morgan! Run!" she screamed.

Every muscle in her body protested as she pushed herself off the ground. Every step she took made her want to vomit but she lurched determinedly toward the stairs. On the third step down, dizzy from pain, she slipped and almost tumbled the rest of the way if she hadn't caught the banister first.

"Chloe!"

Morgan stood frozen on the far side of the kitchen. The only obstacle between her and the assailant was the island counter.

Chloe launched in a flying tackle from midway up the stairs. She and the assailant crashed into the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs.

"Go out the back door. Now!" she ordered. God, it hurt to speak.

The French doors leading to the courtyard slammed open, then shut. She reached up, knocked off his cap, and ripped off his mask. A conventionally handsome man in his mid-thirties, dark brown hair and eyes, snarled at her.

Minutes; Chloe only needed to hold him off for several more minutes. Dispatch had sent a patrol car her way.

"You bitch." He paired his cursing with a knee to Chloe's abdomen.

The blow knocked out her breath, but it barely registered on top of the torturous cacophony of pain strumming through her every cell. She answered his kick with a headbutt at his chin. His teeth clicked, and the back of his head bounced off her hardwood floor with a clunk. Blood and sweat clumped her eyelashes, making it difficult to keep her eyes open and her vision focused. But through her lashes, she saw him blink furiously as blood trickled from his broken lip, down the side of his square jaw.

She aimed for his groin next. He twisted away, so she only caught his left thigh. He kept rolling, grabbing her shoulder to drag her down and under him. If she got pinned, she was as good as dead. Dropping her knife, she trapped his arm to her chest, hooked a foot around his ankle, and flipped them. By tucking her knees and shoulder into the roll, she landed straight into a kneeling position.

They both shook when they clamored to their feet. When he drew his gun from his waistband, she was prepared. She was trained in close quarter combat. He wasn't.

She threw her elbow in his face as she closed in, earning her a satisfying crunch. With both hands, she grabbed his weapon and swept her leg 180 degrees. The momentum forced his arm to lock straight and his hand to go slack with the palm facing the ceiling. His gun clattered to the floor next to her knife.

"FUCK!" he screamed again.

She jabbed the heel of her boot into the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel. "You're not hurting her. Not this time," she hissed. Then with a touch of vindictiveness, she doubled the pressure to his wrist, feeling his joints strain near a breaking point. His jacket sleeve slid down to reveal the underside of his arm covered in tattoos.

"I'll kill you!" he howled.

Before she could examine the marks on his arm, her front door burst open, splintering at the seams. But even that wasn't as shocking at the new arrival darkening her doorway. Chloe slackened her grip. "What? Luc—"

The assailant broke free, diving for something on the floor. No!

"Get ba—"

He surged to his feet and swung at Chloe, silver flashing through the air. A stinging pain bloomed across her neck, cutting her short. Over his shoulders, she watched as the color drained from Lucifer's face and a strangled "Detective!" clawed through the air. The assailant pushed Chloe aside and bolted out the back door.

She sank to her knees. A warm dampness drenched the front of her shirt. The smell of iron flooded her nostrils. She pressed one hand to her neck, coating it in slick blood.

Oh...

"No, no, no, Detective." Lucifer appeared at her side, embracing her with arms she was too weak to fight off.

She tried to speak. Save Morgan, she wanted to say. But all she managed was a wet gurgle. Her chest was unbearably tight. Her lungs burned like it contained a miniature star. She gasped and wheezed, clawing at his sleeve.

Air. She needed air.

"Detective, stay with me. You can't leave."

His scorching hands pressed against her neck wound, but he couldn't cauterize it with touch alone. The last thing Chloe saw before dying was the Devil's scarlet visage and her terror reflected in his blood-red eyes.


	4. Interlude: Lucifer

Interlude: Lucifer  
Chapter 4/8  
Loop 4B

Lucifer lifted his heavy head, squinting against the sun's rays streaming through his floor-to-ceiling windows. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, shaking loose the fine, white powder dusting the underside. He swore it was evening or maybe late afternoon just moments ago. Ever since he murdered Cain, each day bled into the next in an indistinguishable haze. First, it had been a never-ending wait for the hand of judgment to strike, whether it came first from his Father or from Chloe. But his purgatory stretched on with no end in sight, and Lucifer sought solace in the only things he could rely on: drugs, sex, and alcohol.

Still, something felt off. Had the dealer cut his supply with something to cheapen the high?

He cast a bleary eye around his living room, littered with empty whiskey bottles and take-out containers. No sign of any overnight guest(s) though. Pushing off from the coffee table, his efforts to stand knocked over more empty prescription bottles and shook apart tidy lines of cocaine.

Where the hell did his mobile go?

After tossing the room over, he found it lodged in between the sofa cushions. Turning on the screen, he noted the low battery level before reading the time and date: 7:12 AM, March 20, 2019.

He dropped the phone back on the couch, staring at the screen until it went black again.

Even under the best of circumstances—like when he wasn't consuming enough coke daily to single-handedly fuel the cartel wars—he rarely kept track of the days and weeks. As a bloody immortal, he literally had all the time in the universe. Dates were meaningless to someone like him: eternal and alone.

Or they were meaningless before. Before Chloe Decker. Before working with the LAPD and meeting people like Daniel, Miss Lopez, and Charlotte.

Because now, Lucifer couldn't escape or forget the anniversaries marked by time's passage. March 20th, 2019: roughly three months since Cain popped off to Hell for good, twelve weeks since Chloe last said a word to him, ten weeks since he last saw her face at her suspension hearing, and three years to the day since they first met.

Days like today reminded him he may be better off in Hell.

He went through the rest of his stash like his life depended on it. But by mid-morning, his high had faded, leaving him with the feeling that his skin was raw and pulled too tight. He charged up his phone in preparation to order another kilo of cocaine. When someone was as rich and as connected as Lucifer, the dealer would come to him. But when he scrolled down his contact list to find a dealer, he stopped over a certain entry under "C."

Chloe Decker didn't want to see or speak to him. She made that perfectly clear after that first week of ignoring his texts and calls. When he turned up at the station unannounced, she went white as a sheet and refused to meet his eye. Lucifer Morningstar never knew he had a heart to break until that moment.

So Lucifer stayed away. A part of him hoped time could heal the rift he himself could not. That part still hoped.

He opened her contact detail page, finger hovering over the call button. After what seemed like an eternity, he wrenched himself away from the phone and pulled on a fresh change of clothes. Yet after exiting the parking garage, he navigated a familiar route to the police station. And when he killed the engine, he was parked in a visitors' spot at the far end of the station lot. He drew his phone from his inside pocket and gazed at the black screen with knitted brows. She never called him. Lucifer already knew the reason why without hearing it from her mouth.

He exited the Corvette, straightened his cuffs and jacket where he stood. Lucifer would check in with Cucuzza and get a tour of the LAPD's recent drug seizures. Lucifer always liked to keep abreast of all the players in LA's drug trafficking scene. Along the way, he'd confirm that she had returned from her suspension. He wouldn't even approach her or distract her from the work. All he needed to know was that she was safe and whole.

He turned, the click of his Italian loafers echoing off the concrete like the foreboding tick of a second hand, and stopped short. The new lieutenant, Cain's replacement, had the newspaper tucked under one arm and held a coffee takeaway cup from a nearby cafe in his other hand. Lucifer had only met the man once, right before the Detective's hearing with the police board. Even more than the last time, everything from his posture to his expression broadcast his displeasure.

"Ah, Lieutenant..." Lucifer trailed off, trying to recall the man's name. Jeeves?

"Grieve," the lieutenant supplied. "I wasn't expecting to see you, Mr. Morningstar."

Though silent, the "ever again" came through loud and clear.

Lucifer plastered on his best charming smile. "Yes, well, it's been a while, so I thought I'd pop over and see a few friends."

When Grieve's expression soured further, a comment on ruining his handsome face sprang to the tip of Lucifer's tongue. But Grieve's next words killed the flirtation mid-stride. "Decker's not here."

He advanced, dropping all pleasantness from his demeanor. "What do you mean? The Detective's suspension, which I maintain was a _grievous_ misjudgment on your institution's part, was for six weeks. She should be back to work by now."

For Dad's sake, she should never have been suspended in the first place. He even offered to cash in a favor to make the suspension go away, but she turned him down flat. Unless they extended her suspension or fired her. Either possibility was unacceptable in Lucifer's book. Chloe Decker was a good—no, a brilliant detective. She shouldn't be punished for either Lucifer's or Cain's sins.

"She's not in the building," Grieve barked with a glare that screamed for Lucifer to stay back. "She's working on her case. You know, doing her job without a liability dragging her down. Especially one that looked like he came off a three-day bender."

Lucifer drew closer, bristling with annoyance. "I beg your pardon. The only liability here is the LAPD, who promoted a criminal through its rank—"

Grieve cut him off. "Which you knew about months in advance but failed to inform your partner and colleagues. I stand by my case, Mister Morningstar."

"And what a grave misfortune that Pierce is now dead, leaving a vacancy for you to fill," Lucifer purred. He tilted his head and snagged the new lieutenant's eyes in his web. "Tell me, Lieutenant Grieve, was that something you desired?"

"I want this station to straighten up. I want to restore the LAPD's honor."

Lucifer recoiled and broke eye contact. Taking two steps back, he reached for his cigarettes. Maybe nicotine would calm the agitation crawling beneath his skin until he could get more cocaine. No, weed was the better choice.

Grieve blinked owlishly before returning to himself. "Goodbye." He left without a backward glance.

"Good riddance," Lucifer muttered, wrestling with his lighter. With a lit cigarette between his lips, he climbed back into his car and considered his next move.

He wasn't welcome here. He should leave. He should even return to Hell; to where he belonged.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

He sat in his Corvette, plumes of smoke drifting lazily through the open air as he smoked his remaining cigarettes. At the sound of every approaching car, he would glance at his rearview mirror and tidy his hair before reaching for the ignition. Fed up with his indecisiveness, he climbed out and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the entire car frame.

If Grieve thought he had intimidated Lucifer Morningstar, he was sorely mistaken. As if he or any human possessed the ability to keep Lucifer from any place he wanted to be. The Devil bowed to no power.

As he approached the exit, a Dodge Charger appeared in his peripheral vision. Lucifer stepped behind a concrete pillar and waited for the vehicle to pass. It ultimately parked in a spot reserved for detectives. The sight of his Detective emerging, hair pulled back in a ponytail and clad in the same sky blue blazer she wore on the balcony before their worlds fell apart, stole Lucifer's breath. He wished he could say she was as he remembered her, but the sleepless bruises under her eyes had only deepened with time. Not to mention her waist had dropped two inches.

Rather than head straight into the station, she opened the back door and helped a young child out of the car. The girl wasn't Beatrice, but there was something about her that caught Lucifer's attention. Whoever she was, she made him uneasy.

-x-x-x-

Lucifer waited. He purchased several packs of smokes from the corner store, returned to his post, and waited a while more. It wasn't until lunchtime before he saw her again. He trailed behind her, eyes fixed on her hunched shoulders. Even her feet dragged with every step. Their journey took them to the deli down the street where they used to get lunch when he tempted her away from those dreadful vending machines. He peered through the shop windows and saw she had queued up. He settled back against the wall and pulled out another cigarette to pass the time. Every so often, he'd peek around the corner to check on her.

Was she sleeping enough? Was she already working too hard? Was she eating enough?

"Hey, buddy! Long time no see!"

A boisterous voice and a hearty slap across his shoulders cut into his thoughts. Lucifer clenched his fist reflexively, crushing his lit cigarette in his grip. Hissing, he uncurled his hand and dropped the crushed bud. A small circular burn rested in the center of his palm. He rubbed his face with his hand, marveling at how his stubble stung the burn. "Ah, what a coincidence."

"Yeah right—" Ella snickered. She leaned forward to look into the deli but stopped when she saw his face. "Dude, you look fucking wrecked."

"And you're as astute as ever, Miss Lopez."

Ella glared at him. "Don't make me smack you again, estupido. You and I both know this isn't so much a coincidence as you stalking Chloe."

"I am not—"

She shot him an unimpressed look that shut his mouth with an audible click. "Why don't you talk to her?"

"The Detective doesn't wish to see me."

"She told you that herself, huh?"

"It's more what she hasn't said," Lucifer muttered to himself. He pivoted to his right to check on the detective again but caught himself. On second thought, he need not lurk about like a common criminal. Ella would probably be happy to fill him in on everything he'd missed. He simply needed to evade any of her questions.

"Enough about the Detective," he smiled sweetly at her and took her elbow. "Tell me about what you've been up to."

Her expression made it clear she didn't buy into his act, but she let him lead her away.

-x-x-x-

To his surprise, the Detective took the girl home like it was a lost pet. Ella had told him all about Chloe's current case and the child she had delivered to the station that day. Lucifer had only glimpsed the unnamed girl from a distance, but something about her bothered him deeply. Though angels manifested in all shapes and sizes, none would assume a body so small and defenseless. Angels may be God's children, but they were also his soldiers. Thus the girl wasn't one of Lucifer's many siblings.

The mystery left Lucifer with little recourse other than following the Detective all the way home. He tailed her back to Venice Beach with three cars between them. He parked the Corvette two blocks away to avoid detection and hoofed the rest of the way. He took up guard under a tree across the street from her living room window. With his superhuman sight and hearing, he needn't get any closer.

But as time passed, he began to second guess his worries. All appeared fine in the Decker household, even though there was no sign of the Detective's spawn? Maybe Daniel was responsible for her while the Detective babysat? Other than a close call where she came to stare at the window along with the child, Lucifer had nothing to show for his surveillance.

He pulled out his cigarette case, counting how many remained. He gripped one and pulled it free when the Detective's shout rang as if he stood in the same room.

"Morgan! Run!"

Another voice, sweet and childlike, answered with terror, "Chloe!"

He dropped his case and his cigarette, then sprinted across the street. He barely dodged an oncoming BMW in time. Had he been further away, he could have shrugged off the car itself in a head-on collision. But this close to the Detective... When he gripped the door handle, her locks and tumblers began shifting into place. But he didn't wait for them to finish and simply used his superhuman strength to force the door open.

At the sound of the wood breaking, she looked up from a man, clad in black and even more suspicious for it, she had trapped in an arm lock. The hard expression on her face wavered as soon as she met Lucifer's eyes. Fear widened her eyes, dilated her pupils, and slackened her hold. "What? Luc—"

The other man ripped his arm from her hold and lunged for the knife on the floor.

"Get ba—" She held up a hand to warn Lucifer off, even as she advanced on the armed man.

Lucifer had always known mortal lives were all too short and all too fragile. He had seen it again and again over his very long life. He was no stranger to it during his partnership with the Detective. Every time hers came close to being severed short, as with Malcolm and with Cain, Lucifer did not hesitate to throw his own body in front of her as a shield.

Time slowed, and he couldn't bridge the gap between them fast enough. The blade flashed through the air, quicksilver bright and fast, slicing cleanly across the column of her pale neck.

"Detective!" Lucifer shouted.

The murderer shoved her aside and exited via the kitchen door. A scorching sensation, which reminded him of when he first plunged into Hell, coursed through his body. Lucifer's first instinct was to pursue the murderer and punish him. But the dazed look on her face as she pressed a hand to her bleeding wound stopped him cold in his tracks. She fell to her knees, swayed, and collapsed entirely. Lucifer caught her before she hit the floor.

"No, no, no, Detective."

The bleeding—he had to stop the bleeding. Yet she tried to push his hand away even as her lips turned blue and her eyes grew glassy. With a shaky hand cradling her neck, he realized the red of his skin was not from her blood alone. But his hand and the rest of his body had reverted to its more Hellish form.

"Detective, stay with me. You can't leave," he pleaded. Then he called out in silent prayer to Amenadiel, his Father, anyone who might be listening for help. To no one's surprise, his prayers went unanswered.

-x-x-x-

Lucifer lifted his heavy head, squinting against the sun's rays slanting through his floor-to-ceiling windows. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, shaking loose the fine, white powder dusting the underside. He retrieved his phone from its hiding place between two sofa cushions.

The time was 7:05 AM.

The date was March 20, 2019.

But he still remembered, with a painstaking clarity, the slick of her warm blood and the light leaving her sea-foam eyes. And he understood.

He was already in Hell.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
Loops 5 & 6

Without opening her eyes, Chloe reached for her neck. Her fingers traced her throat's unbroken skin and came away completely dry.

It had been strange when the killer found her on the road two loops ago. For him to then track her to her home should have been impossible. So how? Maybe her initial conclusions were incorrect. Maybe she wasn't the only person to retain memories between each reset. If he did remember, it placed the two of them into a never-ending arms race that had ended in her death every iteration so far.

Dying wasn't new. Not after the last several loops. But Lucifer was.

Had that really been him? Why did he appear now? Chloe hadn't seen him in any of the other loops. Until she directly interfered, everyone else stuck to the course of their day. Did that mean he was following her all along? If so, why didn't he try to help her sooner?

Unless...

The Devil's ravaged face and burning eyes flashed through her mind.

Unless Lucifer was responsible... No. He wouldn't do that to her.

As the morning wore on, she wasn't sure anymore. She pulled on her professional attire and tried to go to work as usual. She had new leads to follow, namely her assailant's face. She even spoke with a police sketch artist to get a composite sketch done. But the face that haunted her through the morning was not her killer, but that of her former partner.

Surely, the Devil would have better things to do than mess with a nobody like her. But that brought up the uncomfortable question she had neither the opportunity nor courage to ask since Marcus' death: Why did he hang around for so long in the first place?

-x-x-x-

LUX's building loomed over her. It wasn't a skyscraper in the same sense as other LA buildings. Yet it seemed to block out the sun like a foreboding obelisk. On her way into the building, she caught sight of the plaque declaring the building as a historical landmark. The memory of his awe and gratefulness after she gave him the papers were overshadowed by the humiliation of being stood up at a restaurant, collecting pitying looks from the wait staff like it would pay out in her pension plan.

She came here for answers, not to reminisce.

The interior was dimly lit, almost as if someone forgot to turn off the mood lighting after closing up. Chloe found no one, neither Lucifer nor any other staff, lurking behind the bar or in the back offices. The entire club was silent as a cemetery.

She entered the elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse floor. As she ascended, she wondered if she was being too reckless. At best, Lucifer would be as oblivious as the rest of the world to the repeating day. But if he knew... If Lucifer was responsible... Chloe clenched her fists. If he was the key to escaping this never-ending day, then she wouldn't know until she confronted him.

Her head shot up and her spine stiffened when the elevator chimed. She took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold into the Devil's den. Whatever scene she expected, this wasn't it. The surface of his wet bar was entirely covered with empty bottles. Most were alcohol bottles, but there was also a small mountain of empty pill bottles. They weren't the only drug paraphernalia littered around the living room. She counted no less than six bongs and passed two solid bricks of coke left lying on top of his piano. At the epicenter of the disaster sat a disheveled Lucifer, wearing a pair of tight black boxer-briefs with his dress shirt hanging unbuttoned.

He lifted red-rimmed eyes to meet her shell-shocked gaze. Then he broke into a fit of bitter, rankling laughter that sprouted goosebumps down the length of Chloe's arm. "Lovely! No wonder that was such a rush!"

Her eyes fell to the rows and rows of neatly cut cocaine laid out across the coffee table's glass surface. Lucifer was never shy about his drug use, no matter how much she disapproved. But the picture he now presented made her sick to her stomach. God, he would probably be dead if he were human.

"What the hell, Lucifer?" she snapped.

"Yes, Hell, that does appear to be the case," he replied evenly. Looking down again, he appeared to consider taking his next hit.

"Oh no, you don't." She closed the distance between them in four firm strides and grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him in place and preventing him from stuffing his nose into another line of coke. "I am not having this conversation while you're coked out of your mind. I want answers, Lucifer."

He tilted his head back, eyes flashing blood red as his face distorted. "Release me."

She immediately let go of his shirt collar like it was hot coal. As she scrambled to get away, the back of her knees collided with something. She fell back into his sofa with a cry. Lucifer stared, watching blankly as she flailed against the cushions. He made no move to help her. After catching her breath, she clung to the arm at the far end of the sofa and glared daggers in return. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling she was a mouse staring down a viper.

Lucifer rose to his feet, swaying from side to side.

"What are you doing?" Chloe pressed her back deeper into the cushion.

"I want a drink. Am I allowed to at least indulge in that, _Detective_?" He always spoke her title like an endearment. She had never heard the word sneered so unkindly before; not even from the mouths of people she'd arrested before.

Anger tightened in her chest; a fist gripping her heart. "Not like I can stop you."

"No, you can't."

Lucifer pulled a bottle from his half-empty bar shelves. At first, he grabbed two glasses, twisted open the bottle cap, then paused. He pushed one glass to the side and filled the other to its brim. He didn't so much drink the whiskey as chug it, before pouring a second one. Chloe pried her hands from the sofa and spun to face Lucifer. Only then did she realize he now stood between her and the only exit.

Gathering her courage, she plowed ahead. "Something strange is happening."

Besides the hint of apprehension that fluttered across his face, which he hid by downing that second drink, he showed no signs of what he was thinking.

Now that she started to talk, her words came tumbling out like a babbling brook. "No, strange is an understatement. What it actually is is an impossibility. But I'm constantly reevaluating what is and isn't possible ever since you..."

He grimaced but remained quiet.

"I was working my newest case, followed a lead all the way out to Topanga, but I was ambushed. He shot me here." She placed a palm flat across her stomach. "I died and then woke up in bed. At first, I thought I had a nightmare. I went about my day, worked my case, and tried to save the girl. Then I died again and everything restarted. Was I going insane? No matter what I did, I couldn't... And then you... you showed up." She swallowed hard, caught in the memory of drowning in her own blood with his hand cradling her neck and head.

"Here we go." His eyes and tone were equally flat when he spoke.

She refused to cower under his gaze. She sprang to her feet and crossed the room, stopping a foot away from him. "You were there, weren't you? You were there when he slit my throat. You remember me dying, don't you?"

He stiffened, eyes widening by a fraction. A single spasm shook his body, followed by a light ping as a hairline crack appeared in his drinking glass.

"You do remember. Unlike everyone else, you don't forget everything once we reset. Why?" she demanded. "Why do you remember?!"

"As if I could forget," he snarled. "That image will be seared into my brain for the rest of eternity."

Her anger blazed, fierce and suffocating as a Californian wildfire. "Is that why you're doing this? Are you tormenting me on purpose? Is this payback for not—"

"One second. You're blaming me?" But the wounded expression on his face was quickly supplanted by a bitter laugh. "Course you blame the Devil!"

"That is what you are!" she screamed. Her entire body shook but she was unsure if it was from rage or fear.

The stress of the last few days, albeit the same exact day over and over again, put down whatever lingering fears about Lucifer she still had. She was mentally exhausted. She was at the end of her metaphorical rope. "Satan! The Devil! The root of all evil! If you're not to blame for this, then who is? Why do I keep dying? Why does everything I do make no difference? Why won't this day end? It just repeats over and over again."

"Of course, everything's repeating! You're part of my bloody Hell loop!"

The bar shelves exploded without warning, sending the remaining bottles crashing to the counter and floor. Drops of alcohol splattered across her hair and cheeks. Embedded in the center of the now empty wall was a large shard of crystal. It was all that remained of the tumbler Lucifer had thrown. She scrambled back and drew her weapon. She knew he was sometimes violent, but rarely in this explosive a manner.

And never did she fear for her safety before.

"Stand down!" she barked.

"Shoot me all you like, Detective. It'd hardly make a difference." He pivoted to face her again, spreading his arms wide and grinning maniacally. "Seeing as I'm already in Hell."

"What?"

Ignoring her, he rambled on, "That'd be one way to spice things up. Maybe we can alternate each time. I watch you die, then you can kill me the next time around. Otherwise, this will grow terribly dull fast."

She rearranged her grip on her pistol. His voice kept repeating itself in her head: "Hell." Her head spun with his implication. "What do you mean? Explain, Lucifer! What do you mean we're in Hell? Am I dead?"

"I'm in Hell!" he snapped, then his face twisted in agony that speared her as deeply as her own terror. "You... You're a manifestation. Like Uriel."

She lowered her weapon, arms now too weak to stay up. She barely mustered enough strength to keep it from slipping her numb grip. She shook her head vehemently, clinging to a lifeline of denial. "No! That makes no sense. Why would Hell look like your penthouse? I've been out there. It's still LA. I've seen Dan, Ella, and Trixie! This can't be Hell. You're wrong!"

"I'm not." The finality in his words cut her like the swing of an executioner's ax.

She couldn't be dead. Not yet. What about Trixie? What about Morgan? "Then you're lying!" As soon as the accusation left her lips, she knew she'd overstepped.

He moved so fast that she never had the chance to fight back. Her gun skidded several feet away, spinning in circles on the marble floor after she dropped it in shock. The hard and unyielding wall against her back stood in direct contrast to his hand cradling her neck. While her feet stayed planted on the ground, he could have dangled her given all her troubles breathing. How many times had she seen him do this to their suspects? His face hovered close. From this distance, she spotted a thin cut across his temple and a thin stream of blood trickling from the wound down the side of his face. His breath, heavy with alcohol, played across her cheeks like a lover's caress, but the fury blazing in his eyes was anything but.

"Don't you dare," he hissed. His fingers twitched against her skin, tightening his grip almost imperceptibly. His palm against her throat burned like a brand. "You may wear her face, but you severely test the limits of my temper."

Lucifer was truly livid. But she had the feeling he saw her without actually seeing her.

"What's a hell loop?" she asked. Her mind raced into overdrive to piece together all the clues since she first arrived. He had been acting strange since the moment she stepped off his elevator. Like he had already drawn his conclusion and written her off.

"There's no point in explaining to you."

"Humor me," she insisted. "Please, Lucifer."

His grip slackened. His shoulders drooped. "Simple, this is my punishment."

"Please, Lucifer, listen to me. I'm not some figment of your imagination. Or a drug-induced hallucination. I'm here! I'm real!" she swallowed thickly after her voice cracked. "And I need your help. Please."

He stared unblinking at her face, and she fought to not squirm under his bleary gaze.

"No. I don't believe you."

Her temper flared. It was clear nothing she could say would penetrate through his thick head. With a twist of her body, she slipped free and threw her elbow high, popping him right in the face. He staggered back with one hand pressed against his nose to stem the flow of blood. He wore shock as well as an ill-fitted suit.

"You self-absorbed asshole. Not everything is about you!" she snarled as she bent down to retrieve her weapon and re-holstered it. "I came here because I thought... I don't know what I thought! Right now, you're useless to everyone, most of all to yourself!"

She fled the penthouse without another look.

Only later in the solitary confines of her car, trapped in typical LA traffic, did a tiny nagging remorse settle in. Would their conversation have gone better if he was sober? Probably not. Lucifer was too busy wallowing in his self-pity to even see straight. It became clear that their time apart had affected him deeply. Part of her ached when she remembered his red-rimmed eyes and his gutted expression. But in typical Lucifer manner, he was quick to make it all about himself. Just like when he'd abandoned her at the crime scene with Marcus' corpse or when he dropped off the face of the earth for months without a peep.

She scrubbed her neck, trying to ease the phantom pressure around her throat. Lucifer had always been volatile at his worst, but to have it directed at her like that? They had been partners for almost three years, and in one of her moments of greatest need... Even if he didn't believe she was real, it was difficult to write off how he'd threatened her. How he'd utterly dismissed her.

A BMW swerved into her lane, cutting her off. She slammed the brakes and jabbed the car horn viciously. The BMW's driver paid her no attention as it merged into the far left lane without signaling. Chloe was half-tempted to take down its license plate and forward it to a patrol vehicle. But then she caught the time on her dashboard: ten past four. She was running out of time to get to Morgan.

She turned on her siren and sped to the motel. When she finally pulled into the parking lot, the first thing she spotted was the room door swinging on its hinges. She left her cruiser parked across two empty spaces and her key in the ignition. She nearly pulled something in her shoulder in her rush to unbuckle her seatbelt.

Gripping the doorframe for support, she gaped at the unmoving body lying on the other side of the threshold. A dark, red stain bloomed under Officer Rollins like a bed of morbid flowers, matching the bloody posy across his uniform. She dropped to her knees next to the body. "Officer Rollins. Rollins!" she called.

No response and she couldn't find either a breath or a pulse. She searched the bathroom, inside the closet, and under the bed for the little girl. There was no sign of her other than a discarded novel left behind on top of the bedsheets.

"Morgan?" Chloe called. "Morgan!"

She turned toward the door, determined to hunt down the black SUV and save Morgan. As soon as she stood up, vertigo swept her off her feet and laid her flat. Her eyes snapped from shut to open. The view of the motel parking lot was replaced with her bedroom ceiling, while Delilah's sweet voice heralded the dawn of the same new day.

-x-x-x-

When Chloe marched into his den, Lucifer didn't deign to acknowledge her. He bent his head and did another line of coke instead.

She didn't have the superhuman strength necessary to physically stop him, so she would rely on her words. "This isn't a Hell loop."

"And you know for sure how?"

"I didn't die during the last loop, but the reset still happened."

He froze; a disquieting statue stooped over his coffee table.

She continued, not knowing how much longer she could hold his attention. "Look, I don't know exactly what a Hell loop is, but I'm guessing they're a lot like time loops. Ella explained those to me. There's always a metaphorical reset button, usually someone dying. How many times do you think I've reset?"

He answered with such surety. "Three times."

"Wrong, this is my sixth time," she declared and crossed the room to stand over him.

When Lucifer met her eyes, he looked utterly lost and torn. He shook his head in denial. "That's impossible. I don't believe you." But he no longer sounded as confident as the previous loop.

"Then I'll prove it." She crossed her arms and stared him down.

Lucifer silently responded with an unblinking stare. After several moments, he broke eye contact first. "Do as you please."

She settled into the tiny office looking into the living room with her work laptop. The thin layer of dust covering the desk attested to how long it had sat empty. She wasn't keen on babysitting him, but she'd be lost if he decided to leave. She tried not to panic at the idea.

Her case had hit a dead end. Chloe wasn't ready to give up, even if all the work she did now amounted to nothing more than rote memorization. If she managed to knock some sense into Lucifer, she'd need to present the facts of her case. She even combed through the list of matches for the killer's partial license plate, hoping in vain one would pop out upon a second or third review.

Lucifer didn't leave or try to approach her as she worked. He was a ghost in his own home, alternating between gawking at Chloe and refusing to make eye contact. She, on the other hand, fought her well-honed cop instincts and the urge to clear up the mess of drug paraphernalia. Not that it'd do anything. He'd be flush with cocaine again once the day reset. At least he refrained from doing any other drugs while she was present.

By mid-morning, she suspected he'd burned through his remaining high. Still far too quickly for how much drugs he had swimming in his veins. If he was human, he would have overdosed days ago.

She flinched at the thought. Before she learned what he really was, a small part of her always feared that possibility. Between the excessive amounts of drugs, alcohol, and getting shot at, she used to wonder if he'd make it to forty.

Now the joke's on her.

She got up and leaned against the glass partition separating the office from the living room. He remained seated on the floor with his back to the office. The only time he'd moved was to retrieve more whisky from the bar. She stared at his back and the wrinkled shirt draped over him. She couldn't tell from this distance but did he seem gaunter than before?

Usually, he'd made a flirtatious remark or veiled innuendo by now. The silence was unnerving.

She cleared her throat. "Do you start every loop high?" when he didn't respond, she continued, "For me, every loop starts with me waking up in bed to my daily alarm. The radio's always playing the same song."

_"I can't turn back the currents of time,_  
_Every day keeps rushing forward._  
_I can't afford to stand still and wait,_  
_As for the two of us?_  
_Only time will tell." _

In her youth, her pageant talent was ballet, not singing. So forgive her if her voice cracked on a high note or if her tone fell flat. At least her singing convinced Lucifer to face her. While the last echo faded, the lyrics sunk in for the very first time.

She huffed incredulously, "Okay, that song is way too on the nose."

"That's Delilah's song." It was impossible to deny the sorrow in his voice.

Then she remembered what the radio DJ said in a previous loop. "She died three years ago today."

"And we met for the first time. Yes, what a lovely coincidence." His mood sharpened into something cutting.

She needed to reel him in before she lost him or her temper again.

"You still think this is a Hell loop. I gotta admit. I thought there'd be more fire and brimstone in Hell. This?" She gestured around his penthouse with its priceless curios. "Looks downright cozy."

He rose to his feet, glaring. "Hell is nothing so pedestrian. Hell knows all your darkest secrets. All your deepest regrets. Hell prepares a tailor-made torment for every single one of its damned souls."

The sun's journey across the clear blue sky placed it in such a position to cast nearly all his face in shadow. Despite the brightness of the clear spring day shining through the penthouse windows, a shiver ran down her spine. He spoke with such authority and knowledge befitting the king of such a place. No one else on Earth knew Hell as thoroughly as Lucifer. And the only person that might know Hell better was Lucifer's father: God himself who was both omniscient and omnipresent.

It was too much. It was all suddenly too much for her to handle. Heart hammering in her ears, she retreated into the study.

-x-x-x-

Later—after processing his words and the sudden existential crisis they wrought—she stepped out to find the living room reasonably cleaner. The rotting takeout boxes and the mountain of pill bottles were cleared away, along with the two bricks of coke that once sat on the piano's lid. She hoped he hid the drugs and not consumed them. Lucifer, now clad in a crimson dressing-gown, was smoking on his terrace. When she reached the balcony entrance, she hesitated before forcing herself to step outside. She didn't stop until she reached his side and leaned against the balcony railing.

Lucifer kept one of the best views of Hollywood from his terrace. On a clear day like today, she could see as far as Griffith Observatory. And when the city was bathed in warm yellow light at night, it was beyond romantic. They'd had their share of hearts-to-hearts and almost-moments against this backdrop of LA.

"Back to torture me more?" he muttered around the cigarette between his lips.

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" she shot back unkindly.

He scrubbed his unkempt face, where his stubble now entered "mountain-man" territory. "Again with this charade. Uriel wasn't nearly this tedious."

"No, what you've said makes no sense. You keep insisting this is your Hell loop. But if that's the case, why am I dying over and over again? Wouldn't this be my Hell loop or whatever?" she argued. That last option might be the truth, but she couldn't allow herself to consider the possibility, however slim. For now, she had to trust her guts.

"Impossible. You're nothing more than a mechanism in the loop."

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm real, Lucifer." She resisted the urge to stomp her feet or wring his neck.

Finally, he looked at her and gave an infuriatingly smug smirk; though the light never reached his eyes. "We—Two people can't share the same loop. That's not how Hell works. Loops are tailor-made to the individual. You can even say Hell is an eternity of isolation with only your guilt for company."

"Fine, say you were right," she hissed. "This still doesn't add up. I remember dying five times. This is my sixth loop. If all this was meant to torture you specifically, why didn't you appear until the fourth time? Why weren't you there from the start? And why did everything reset though I didn't die this last time?"

His brows creased before he turned away. But Chloe wasn't ready to drop the conversation. Convincing Lucifer to see reason was never an easy task. It required persistence above all. She stepped closer and grabbed his elbow. They both jumped at the contact; she remembered the last time they had been this close, but he seemed panicked. If anyone should be afraid, it should be her. Nothing matched her imagination during the occasions she dared to imagine their reunion. She waited for him to throw her off. He didn't; not even a muscle twitched.

"You're actively refusing to believe me. Why are you being so stubborn?" she asked.

He extended an arm toward her, reaching out to maybe caress her face. But the red of his sleeve caused her to flinch. He dropped his hand and moved back. Yet he still gazed at her with an undeniably tender light in his eyes, one that made her breath catch. "Because that would be false hope."

He flicked his cigarette over the railing and left her to her thoughts.

-x-x-x-

The rest of the afternoon passed without any further confrontation or conversation. She focused on her case, searching through law enforcement databases for mentions of Morgan, Robin, or Chloe's many-time killer. Sometimes, she felt like Sisyphus. Her every attempt to crack the case was limited by what she accomplished in a span of nine hours. Without the ability to carry over evidence, she was cursed with a nearly blank slate at the start of each loop. Any document generated or in-progress searches vanished into thin air.

She glanced at the time on her screen. It was well past four. If she was right—no, she had to be right, the loop would restart in a matter of minutes.

She shut down the laptop and stretched out the kinks in her back when she stood. No sign of Lucifer in the living room, out on the balcony, at the bar, or in his library. Shit. Did he leave while she was working? She rushed to the elevator, hoping he'd gone downstairs and no further. Before calling for the elevator, she glanced into his bedroom and breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the figure lying on his bed. Cautiously, she approached the steps into his bedroom and climbed them after he failed to acknowledge her.

Lucifer lied on his back on top of his covers, while his dressing gown spread open under him like a pool of blood. His eyes were closed, but she didn't believe for a second he was asleep. Given the dark bruises under his eyes, he needed the rest. She touched her matching bags self-consciously.

A tidal wave of questions nearly swept her under. From the significant to the trivial, there was so much she wanted to ask him. Were drugs and alcohol the only thing he did in the last few weeks? Did he keep any company? Where was Maze? Why did he leave her at the loft? Why? Why didn't he show her the truth sooner? Why then? Why after killing Marcus?

She swallowed all those questions and cleared her throat before speaking, "Any moment now. We'll reset back to the beginning."

For several long moments, he gave no reply. The only sound was their individual breaths, falling in and out of sync with each other.

"You're as stubborn as ever, Detective," Lucifer said without opening his eyes.

A lump formed in her throat. "You finally acknowledge me."

"No. I figure this will be the only remaining opportunity to speak with you."

She blinked, fighting the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. But could she say he was wrong? Would either of them have reached out to the other if the current situation hadn't forced them? God, she had spent so long being afraid of him and his intentions. Every story throughout time and history said that he, the Devil, was the embodiment of evil. Lucifer may be vain and self-absorbed. He would scare their suspects half-mad. He also brought her burgers for dinner, yet break her heart through missed appointments and terrible admissions. In these past weeks, she had wondered if he was toying with her or manipulating her.

Yet seeing him now made her reconsider hard. He drank and did drugs with the desperation of a drowning man or ironically, one trying to flee his demons. She hadn't seen him this wrecked since he tried to throw himself in front of a sniper's bullet that one Halloween. He just looked defeated.

"Answer one question, Lucifer, and answer truthfully." She stopped at the edge of the bed, towering over him in a reversal of their usual positions.

His eyes popped open and he glared. "I always tell the truth."

She swallowed. "No, you tell the truth when it suits you. Otherwise, you evade or obfuscate as far as you can without outright lying."

He waved a hand at her, speaking with a hint of mocking, "Ask away, Detective."

"Why do you believe you deserve to be punished?"

He pushed up on his elbows and slid into a seated position. The move brought him almost eye-level with her. "Pardon?"

She folded her hands together and twined her fingers in a white-knuckled grip. "If Hell loops are punishment, why are you being punished? The Devil is supposed to be Hell's ruler. Couldn't you leave? So if you accept this is a Hell loop, it must mean you believe you should be here. That you should be punished. I mean, you left Hell to come to LA."

His eyes were wide and dark as a deer's when frozen under a predator's attention. His Adam's apple bobbed every time he swallowed. "Take your pick of sins. Firstly, I killed Pierce."

"What does that matter?" Pierce tried to kill them first. Surely the Devil didn't care that much for one measly human life.

"That was Dad's one rule I never broke, until him... Cain may have been diminished and warped, but he was still human to his core."

Her head spun, but the rest of her body stayed firmly rooted to the spot. Now was not the time to back down. "Why did you kill him?"

"Really? An interrogation, Detective? Very well. I'll humor you. Because he killed Charlotte. Because he hurt you. Because he tried to kill you." His eyes flashed red with fury.

"Why do you care about what happens to me?" She barely managed to scrape the question past her parched throat and dry mouth. "I'm nobody. Why would the Devil care about me?"

In one fluid movement, Lucifer swung his long legs over the side of the bed. His knees brushed against hers before he rose gracefully to his feet. One second he opened his mouth to reply, and then he was gone. Chloe directed a scream of frustration at her bedroom ceiling, drowning out Delilah's voice.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
Loop 7

_I'm coming over now._

After sending the text to Lucifer, Chloe threw on the same outfit she'd worn every loop and shuttled Trixie to school at a breakneck speed. Then she turned on her siren and kept one eye on her phone for a reply as she weaved through Hollywood traffic. She parked right outside LUX's front door without a second thought. Traffic tickets were the last thing on her mind. She sprinted through the front door and almost ran face-first into something.

That something being Lucifer Morningstar.

They sprang apart; their chests heaving with each breath as they gaped at each other. He'd even pulled on a pair of wrinkled trousers to match his wrinkled shirt, which was messily done up.

Her lips parted, prepared to repeat the question she'd asked before the reset. He seemed so close to opening up in a way he'd never. But the manic light in his eyes, a visible sign of his renewed high, stopped her short. She swallowed his disappointment. There were other things that took priority over her closure.

She stepped away and made a beeline for the bar.

"Detective?" he called cautiously after she ducked behind the bar.

She re-emerged with several bottles of mineral water from the fridge under the counter. Marching back to him, she shoved a bottle into his limp hands and ordered, "Drink up. You need to sober up."

He twisted off the cap and gulped the water down without complaint. When he finished, she handed him another. He took a few sips from the second bottle before capping it.

"This isn't a Hell loop," she said.

He nodded and repeated, "This isn't a Hell loop. The reset was nowhere as seamless as a Hell loop would be."

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes but she fought them back. She'd found someone else who remembered. She wasn't alone.

"What is happening then? Why can you remember things from one loop to the next?"

"Easy, my divinity protects me. There aren't many things in the universe that can mess with a celestial being."

Right... The Devil—Lucifer was an angel once upon a time.

He narrowed his eyes and looked into hers. "The real question, Detective, is why do you remember? You shouldn't. You should be as blissfully ignorant as the rest of the human population..."

Dread gripped the base of her spine. By now the feeling was so familiar she wondered if it was fused into her nervous system. Something about the way he trailed off and how he stared at her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on their ends. But before she could ask any more questions, he shook his head and straightened.

"But someone or some force is responsible. It's more power than intention, sloppily forcing everything back into place and wiping the slate clean," he said absently. "I doubt any of my siblings would be so bold to play with Dad's toys like this."

"Wait, so you're saying angels, you have the ability to reset the entire world like that?" She snapped her fingers for lack of any other descriptor.

"I and a few of my siblings might be powerful enough to try. Michael for one, but that bootlicker won't even jump without instructions from Dad first. Amenadiel has the ability to slow time. I don't think he's ever tried to even rewind time. He wouldn't dare do something this blatant though, and I'm sure he's still in the Silver City. Like I said, there's no finesse behind this. A few more forced resets like that can unravel the fabric of space and time itself."

The ease with which he spoke boggled her mind. In that instant, she was short of breath; her very world knocked askew on its axis by his casual explanation. "Then, is it your..." she swallowed a lump of panic. "Dad?"

"No," he replied without hesitation. "Dad's generally hands-off with humanity."

"What about all the stories in the Bible? The floods and plagues? Or the burning bush?"

He flapped his hand dismissively. "The floods were Mum's doing. Trying to kick up a temper tantrum to get Dad's attention. And the burning bush was all me. Don't worry about Mum. She's not around anymore. She's off in her own retirement universe and can't interfere with ours as a result."

Mum? Lucifer used to complain about his mother regularly. So Charlotte hadn't been Lucifer's stepmom? She had been his actual mom? God's wife? Dear Literal Lord, Dan slept with what? The goddess of all creation?

"Detective? Are you alright? You appear a tad green around the edges."

She stumbled toward the bar and collapsed against a stool for support. "No, I'm not okay. This is too much, Lucifer."

"Yes, divinity tends to confound the human mind. At least you're not falling to your knees in worship or begging for absolution." The disgust and bitterness in his voice cut like a dull knife across her back. "I'm telling you the truth, Detective, just as I've done since the beginning. Still, I don't mean to cause you more distress."

She pressed her forehead against the cool bar-top and took several deep breaths. Behind her, she sensed Lucifer, his presence as steady as it'd always been, hovering a step out of reach. It took longer than she preferred, but her heart rate eventually slowed from a racing pace to a respectable trot. She turned to face him once more and asked, "How do we solve this mess then?"

"We focus on you. It's possible you remain cognizant of the resets because you were exposed directly to the cause. Have you come into contact with anything strange? An artifact maybe? Or someone suspicious?"

She bit back a bitter laugh. "Lucifer, I'm a police officer. I do nothing but see suspicious people and things."

"Think, Detective," he insisted.

Her killer's face came to mind. "Can it be him?"

Lucifer tensed. "Him?"

"I'm in the middle of a case. The victim is a Jane Doe. I still don't know her name or who she really is, but I found her daughter. There's this man coming after her though. And no matter what I've done differently each loop, he _always_ manages to find us."

He stepped closer, darkness radiating off him. "This man, was he the one who slit your throat?"

She nodded. "Slit my throat. Shot me several times. Ran me off the road. You name it. He never gives up. He keeps coming again and again."

Lucifer turned abruptly and marched toward the front door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" she called.

His shoulders shook when he spoke. "To find this cretin."

-x-x-x-

It was no easy task, but Chloe forced him upstairs to throw on a fresh suit. She couldn't roll into the station with a Lucifer who looked like he'd come right off a week-long bender. Even so, they still received their fair share of wide-eyed stares walking through the precinct. The desk sergeant spilled coffee into her lap after spotting him. Ella was so shocked that she stopped dead in the middle of her conversation with Officer Engles and stared as Chloe and Lucifer rushed past.

Dan, on the other hand, flew past shock and straight into a rage. He cut them off at the bottom of the steps and pointed an accusing finger at Lucifer. "What the hell is he doing here?!"

Every eye in the bullpen, including Lieutenant Grieve from inside his office, was on them now. She half-expected Lucifer to crack an inappropriate joke about his devilishness. He sneered but otherwise stayed quiet.

"Stop it, Dan. I need his help on a case."

Dan ignored her plea and didn't stop until he was chest-to-chest with Lucifer. "Get out!" He planted both hands on Lucifer's chest and tried to shove him back.

Lucifer didn't budge an inch. He leaned in to Dan's touch. "I'll leave when the Detective tells me to."

Dan balled his hands into fists and wound his arm back.

"Oh my god, watch out!" Ella screamed from the mezzanine.

Chloe glanced up and gasped. She forgot all about Ella's box of files. It would land on Lucifer, Dan, or both of them with how close they were standing. She barely squeaked the first syllable of a warning when Lucifer's arm shot out and tapped Dan's chest. He barely touched Dan but the force sent her ex stumbled back half a dozen steps. With his other arm, Lucifer caught the box without looking up or dropping a single file.

"Why'd you push me, you ass?" Dan roared.

Lucifer favored him with an arrogant look. "I saved you, Daniel. You can't afford a drop in your IQ given how low it already is."

"Nice catch, Lucifer!" Ella flew down the stairs, beaming and completely oblivious to the ongoing tension. Without waiting for him to put down the box, she threw her arms around his waist and squeezed. "I missed you so much! I'm so glad to see you!"

Ella's enthusiasm and Lucifer's reaction to her destroyed any remaining tension. Chloe even spotted a few faces in the crowd smiling at the pair. With the box now tucked under one arm, Lucifer used the other to pat Ella gently on the back. If he thought that might placate her and get her to release him sooner, he was wrong. Ella clung harder. Lucifer shot Chloe a silent but panicked plea for help. Dan was now gone, and his desk was empty. Chloe only hoped her ex stepped away to calm his temper. For a moment, everything almost felt normal again.

-x-x-x-

The list of matching partial plates was still as long as the first, second, and third time she ran the search. Chloe still didn't have any way of paring down the list. Sighing softly, she snuck a glance at Lucifer out of the corner of her eye. He sat slouched in the chair next to her desk. But instead of playing with his phone or rearranging her desk, he was diligently reviewing the case file. His mouth was set in a grim line as his dark eyes perused the pages of evidence and photos. The sight was unnerving for its mixture of familiarity and novelty.

Chloe redirected her attention to the entrance. The rest of the bullpen gave them a wide berth once the commotion died down. Ella went to her lab with a skip in her steps. Dan returned to his desk long enough to grab files and to glare at the back of Lucifer's head before disappearing again. He ignored Chloe entirely, which meant he wasn't likely to speak to her all day. Chloe counted that as a blessing at this point. They would only argue.

"Worried about Detective Douche?" Lucifer drawled, drawing out the syllable in "douche" and rolling it across his tongue like a sip of fine wine.

"No, that patrol I sent to pick up Morgan isn't back yet."

He dropped the file on her desk and started to prop his feet up on the edge, but then reconsidered and sat up. "That's the victim's daughter?"

She nodded. "She's a very quiet girl. It took me three, four loops to learn her name. It's possible she's traumatized, so we'll need to handle her gently."

"Yes, gently, like an antique vase." Lucifer shuddered. "Well, as long as she keeps her distance and her hands to herself."

Chloe swiveled her chair to face him fully and folded her arms across her chest. A new tension suddenly set into her jaws. "What is the deal with you and kids? Is this a," she dropped her voice surreptitiously before finishing, "Devil thing?"

"Hardly." He sniffed, folding his hands over his lap. "They're helpless and needy for the most part. I don't see what the fuss is about."

"They're kids. They're young. Of course, they need someone to take care of them. Don't you have any sympathy for them? I mean, you have siblings. Although given how bratty you act, you might be the baby of the family."

"Third oldest," he corrected. "Out of hundreds, but who's counting? Besides, we weren't born like you humans. Mum and Dad molded us from their divinity, assigned us our roles, and willed us to take form."

"So what? You all sprang into existence fully-grown." She shifted in her seat, once again all too aware that the man before her wasn't human.

"More or less. No mess, no fuss. Though your way of making offspring is more entertaining." He waggled an eyebrow and ran his tongue inside his mouth.

Much to her annoyance, she flushed at the insinuation. Lucifer was still Lucifer, and he had a one-track mind when it came to sex. She used to wonder how he wasn't constantly buried under paternity suits. He may not be interested in children, but accidents were bound to happen with the insane amounts of sex he had.

Then as if he read her mind, he added with a smirk, "Don't worry, Detective. I'm a responsible Devil. I promise there are no little Anti-Christ ankle-biters running amok."

"Good, I like this world, even as messed up as it gets sometimes." She swiveled back to face her computer monitor, desperately trying to bury her embarrassment.

"As do I, Detective."

His soft admission gave her pause. But her musings were interrupted by someone calling her name. She looked to the front of the bullpen, where two uniformed officers stood at the base of the stairs. One held Morgan's hand, while the other towed the two rolling suitcases retrieved from the motel room.

Chloe stood and waved her arm. "Over here." Then she shot Lucifer a warning look. "Behave."

He threw up both hands in concession.

The two officers made their way over to her desk. Chloe stepped around Lucifer to meet them halfway when he grabbed her wrist and held her in place.

"Let go," she hissed.

He shook his head and tightened his grip until it was almost bruising. For a second, she imagined her wrist shattering between his fingers. She pulled harder to escape him.

"Don't go near her," he barked, eyes glued on the approaching group. More specifically, he glared at Morgan, who'd frozen in the center of the bullpen with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

She forced a stiff smile and addressed the two officers. "Can you please take her to the conference room? I'll be there in a second. Lucifer, come with me. Now."

She finally shook his hand off, grabbed his elbow instead, hauled him to his feet, and marched them both to the privacy of the interrogation room. She made sure the camera and microphones were off before releasing him.

Chloe spun on her heels and snapped, "What the hell are you playing at, Lucifer? You may think human children are disgusting or whatever, but you can't scare them like that. It's bad enough that you sometimes treat Trixie like she's the plague, but this is the victim's daughter! Her mom's dead, and there is a madman after her life. I brought you on to help me figure out this mess. But if you're going to make things worse, you can leave right now!"

"You don't understand, Detective. She's dangerous," Lucifer insisted as he reached out with one hand.

Chloe slapped his hand away. Her temper finally blew the lid off her composure. "She's a ten-year-old!"

"Who's not human!" He shouted in return.

At first, it was the force of his voice that sent her stumbling back until the implication of what he said set in as well. She planted a hand on the interrogation table for support. "What?"

He ran a hand through his hair, messing up his stylish coif. His bangs now laid limply across his wrinkled forehead. "Well, she may be part human, but it's overshadowed by her aes sídhe blood."

Her clumsy tongue fumbled to reproduce his pronunciation. "Aes sídhe? What's that?"

"You know, Fae, people of peace, the good neighbors, the fair folk." Lucifer grew more and more exasperated in tone in response to her blank look at each name.

That last one sparked a vague memory from her childhood when her father used to read her bedtime stories. "Morgan's a fairy?"

"Essentially."

"But she looks so human. Where are her wings?" she blurted out.

"Detective, please, the wings are a Victorian invention. Even if she had them, she wouldn't wander around with them out in the open. I certainly don't."

"You have wings?!" Her voice pitched higher than she meant. She clamped a hand over her own mouth. The image of a pristine set of white wings flashed through her mind. He really was telling her the truth since the very beginning.

Lucifer pulled his shoulders tight. Given his uncomfortable expression, she wondered if he pulled something in the process. "That's beside the point. Given _what_ she is, it's best you don't approach her. She could very well be responsible for this whole mess."

Chloe thought back to her previous interactions with Morgan. Morgan may be a bit precocious for her age, but she was always quiet and well-behaved. If anything, she was too well-behaved. Morgan didn't fake her tears, her terror, or her heartbreak. If she was at least part human, Morgan had parents: a mother who gave birth to her and a father that probably missed her. Chloe shook her head and walked to the exit. As she turned the knob, she paused and said, "She's still a little girl who lost her mother. I can't abandon her."

She let the door fall shut behind her without another glance at Lucifer. She met the two officers that brought Morgan in, thanking them after a debriefing on her case. By the time she saw them out, Lucifer was still nowhere to be found. With a heavy heart, she returned to the conference room.

Morgan studied Chloe for a moment before her attention drifted away in search of something or someone through the clear glass walls behind Chloe. She pulled a chair over to where Morgan sat and said, "Hi, Morgan. I'm Detective Decker, but you can call me Chloe."

"You know my name." Morgan held her pendant with a small hand.

"I do, but I'm here to help you."

The child looked her up and down, pausing momentarily at Chloe's hips. Chloe adjusted her jacket to better hide her gun and badge.

"I believe you," Morgan said and settled both hands folded in her lap.

-x-x-x-

Chloe blinked owlishly when Lucifer collapsed into the chair next to her. He'd vanished for the better part of the afternoon. As they approached the end of the workday, she assumed he'd left for good. "You're back."

Lucifer pulled out his flask, took a sip, and pocketed it again. "I went to verify my hunch. Her mother—" He pointed at Morgan, who looked up from her novel in that same instant. "She's also aes sídhe."

"You went to the—" She cut herself off before she said "morgue." She'd yet to break the news to Morgan this loop.

Leaning forward, he propped his elbow on top of the conference table and rested his chin against his palm. His posture may scream nonchalance to the casual observer, but Chloe spotted the undercurrent of tension lining his spine. Both he and Morgan were now engaged in a one-sided staring contest. Lucifer seemed to forget how to blink, but Morgan refused to look away despite her inherent handicap. Chloe would have intervened, but Morgan wasn't afraid. The little girl gawked at Lucifer like he was the most fascinating thing she'd seen. In fact, it reminded Chloe of how Trixie sometimes looked at her partner.

"Morgan, this is Lucifer," she gently introduced the Devil to the fairy child. You know, because that was her life now.

Morgan scrunched her nose in thought. "Like the Devil?"

"Exactly." Surprise flitted across his face before lobbing his sarcastic question, "Morgan. Like Morgan le Fay?"

"Exactly." Morgan mimed with a cock of her head.

His face turned sour, and Chloe snorted. Based on the look he shot her, he failed to appreciate the humor of the situation. But he quickly turned his attention back to Morgan. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned further forward. "Tell me, Morgan-not-le-Fay, what do you—"

He looked her straight in the eye.

Chloe threw herself at Lucifer, almost knocking him out of his chair and sending them both tumbling to the floor. He caught her around her waist at the same moment she slapped both hands across his mouth. "You are not using your weird mojo on a child!" she exclaimed, outraged.

He huffed and blew hot air over her palms. "Lilt whunt hlurt hern."

A wet swipe of his tongue against the webbing between her middle and ring fingers startled her. She pushed him back, and his chair slid a foot or so before it slowed to a stop.

"It won't hurt her," Lucifer repeated calmly. He scooted his chair back into his previous position.

She wiped her hands on her blazer. Something, probably irritation, crawled under her skin. "I don't care. You're not allowed to whammy her."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Morgan, why are you here?"

Chloe sighed, confident nothing will come from his prodding. She already told him it was difficult to communicate with the girl. He was also used to questioning adult witnesses, and he barely understood how to interact with children on his best behavior. But knowing a little more about his lack of a childhood, it made sense why he treated children as miniature people.

Chloe was about to remind him when Morgan's small voice stunned her into silence.

"Mommy says we have to hide from the monster."

Chloe zeroed in on Lucifer with an angry glare.

"I swear I didn't do anything," he protested. His interest was obviously piqued by Morgan's statement. "Really? A monster, you say?"

Chloe was left to her own devices to figure out whether Morgan's monster was figurative or literal. If fairies existed, it was possible they had predators too.

He continued with his questions. "Then did this monster follow you here from home?"

Morgan hesitated before nodding.

He leaned back and crossed his legs in a relaxed posture. But his chest also puffed up and his shoulders rounded to make him appear broader. "Where's home then? Tír na nÓg? Mag Mel?"

The strange names and their resonant syllables caused a shiver to run down Chloe's spine. She finally understood what books and TV shows described as names carrying power. "Are those..." she trailed off, unable to finish her question.

"Otherworld realms. You can say they're their homelands," Lucifer explained without taking his eyes off Morgan. "They're not places any mortal should want to travel to."

Morgan screwed her face, lips pursed and nose scrunched. She was the very image of a confused child. "No. Edison."

Chloe's eyebrow shot up. "Here in California? Near Bakersfield?"

"New Jersey."

She and Lucifer shared an incredulous look. His shock was probably due to her answer residing on the earthly realm though. Still, New Jersey was a long way from California. She'd yet to see any signs of them having flown, but she would have to look into recent FAA and TSA records to confirm. But if Robin and her daughter were fleeing someone/something, California was as good as a hiding place without leaving the continental USA.

This was more than Chloe every managed to pry out of the taciturn child over multiple loops. She leaned over and whispered into his ears, "Ask her for her and her mom's full names. It'd really help in the investigation."

His calm snapped for a second, but he wallpapered over it with a blank expression. "Detective, don't ever deal in names with the aes sídhe. She may look harmless at this age, but she won't be for long."

This was one area where Lucifer knew best, and she'd have to concede to his expertise. "Fine. Her hometown will narrow down the search. I can't believe she told you so much when you just met," she scowled. He'd done it so easily too, even without using his Devil powers.

He flashed a cheeky smile very reminiscent of the old Lucifer. "She must recognize my inherent charm."

Unimpressed, Chloe addressed the young girl instead. "Morgan, don't answer strange men so easily or honestly in the future."

"You wound me deeply, Detective!" he protested.

Morgan's gaze bounced between the two adults in the room, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But it was difficult to say what conclusions she might draw. Her attention drifted back to Lucifer though. Chloe wished she understood the girl's fascination with him. What did it mean for a fairy child to trust the Devil?

"You glow like the sun. The light is warm," Morgan said quietly.

"Light?" he asked dumbfounded.

Morgan pointed to the center of Lucifer's chest. "You're shining."

Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time Morgan spoke about glowing people. She previously wrote it off as a child's overactive imagination. "Does everyone glow?" she prodded gently.

Morgan shook her head. "Only you two."

"Me?" Chloe gasped, flabbergasted. Even Lucifer seemed disturbed by the declaration. "Lucifer, what does this mean?"

He wet his lips nervously. "I think she can see my divinity."

"Then why do I glow?!" she demanded while worry tied a tight knot in her chest.

Lucifer didn't provide an immediate answer. He shifted in his seat and fiddled with his cuffs for several long moments. When he finally did speak, he wouldn't look her in the eye. "You may have a spark of divinity."

She narrowed her eyes, suspicious of his sudden reluctance to speak. But before she could interrogate him further, a uniformed officer popped his head into the conference room and announced, "Detective Decker, the Lieutenant wants a word with you."

"Now?"

"I think so." The officer shrugged and showed himself out.

Lucifer's palpable relief made her ground her teeth. "This conversation isn't over," she warned. "Keep an eye on her until I get back." As she left the room, she straightened her shoulders and prepared for the worst.

Lieutenant Grieve questioned/lectured her for almost a full hour before releasing her. Then as soon as she left his office, Dan pulled her aside for another fifteen to twenty minutes. By the time Ella waved from the doorway of her lab, Chloe was thoroughly exhausted with the men in her life. Because as soon as she walked back into the conference room with Lucifer, it would be a new can of worms.

"You find something?" Chloe asked, leaning heavily against the lab table. Before she "stepped" into her meeting with Grieve, she'd asked Ella to run a search on Morgan and Robin through New Jersey's police databases.

Ella nodded vigorously. "You betcha!"

Chloe perked up. A break in the case finally! "What'd you find?"

Ella slid a stack of print-outs across the table. The cover sheet on top contained the seal for the Edison Police Department, and the rest of the content was not one but two missing person reports similar to the ones she'd been reviewing by the truckload. A mother-daughter pair, named Dana and Morgan Carey, was reported missing three weeks ago. Dana's husband, Robert, called the police after returning home from work to find an empty house. Chloe flipped through the pages, eager to get her hands on a photo that always accompanied these reports. She found one sandwiched between two pages of the interview transcript between Robert and the police. There were three people in the photo. Robin, or more accurately Dana, had both arms wrapped around Morgan's shoulders. The little girl smiled at the camera, but there was something about the way she clung to her mother. A man who must be Robert stood next to Dana, one arm draped solidly across his wife's shoulder.

"It's him!" Chloe screeched. That was the cocky face of her many-time killer grinning up from the photo.

Ella leaned over, then pointed to the man in the photo. "You know him?"

Chloe gulped. "Yeah, I've seen him around. He's Robert, isn't he? He's the husband."

"Yep."

"I gotta go. Thanks for your help, Ella."

Chloe gathered the papers together and flew out the door. But when she rounded the corner on approach to the conference room, she froze. She couldn't see either Lucifer or Morgan. She stumbled into the empty room, peeking under the table in the vain hope they were playing hide and seek. No such luck. She dropped the report on top of the table to pick up Morgan's abandoned novel. Chloe flipped through the pages, her mind racing to figure out what happened.

The break room! Maybe Lucifer dragged Morgan off to play accomplice while he stole from the vending machine.

But she didn't find them in the break room, at her desk, or in either the men's and women's restrooms.

At her wit's end, she went to Dan. "Have you seen Lucifer?"

Dan's face turned thunderous. "No. I'm doing my best to forget he exists entirely," he snarled.

She tightened her grip on the edge of his desk. "I can't find Morgan. Have you seen her? "

Detective McDonald spoke up from the desk next to Dan's. "Lucifer left with the girl about twenty minutes ago."

"Nobody stopped him?!"

McDonald shrugged and went back to his paperwork.

"See, Chloe, you can't—"

She cut Dan off mid-sentence. "I don't have time for your I-told-you-so's." She turned on her heels and marched back to her desk. First, she tried calling his number. It rang forever before going to his voicemail. The second time she tried, it rang once before she was immediately redirected to voicemail. And it went straight to voicemail the third time.

She stared at her phone in disbelief. Her entire body shook. He turned off his phone.

Chloe was a hairbreadth away from issuing an AMBER alert. She would have if she didn't know for a fact that he was the Devil. His phone's GPS—she'd tracked him before with it. She could still get its last location even if he turned it off. The record placed him last in the Wholesale District. She recognized the location immediately. Devil or not, she was going to wring his neck when she got her hands on him.

-x-x-x-

The warehouse door was unlocked, and the do-not-enter tape that once adorned it was torn. It shouldn't have been. The crime scene had not been released yet. But Lucifer had always found his way around locks so easily. Maybe his talent for trespassing was more a result of his inhuman nature than a predilection for felony misdemeanors.

The body had been found deep inside the warehouse that required she navigate a twisting maze of halls and interconnected rooms. Without any lighting, she cast long shadows across the dusty corridor walls. Like an explorer, she traveled by the light of a makeshift torch: her cellphone's flash. Her every footstep echoed through the empty cavernous spaces. Chloe kept her ears wide open, hoping she'd hear Lucifer before she saw him.

She glanced at the time. It was almost 4:30 PM. She needed to find them both as soon as possible.

After what felt like an eternity, Chloe finally made her way into the shuttered loading bay where Dana Carey's body was found. The sunlight filtering through the row of windows sitting high on one far wall was broken by the rows of concrete pillars. She pulled her blazer closer, suddenly chilled to her bones by the unseasonable cold. Voices boomed around her like church bells, so loud that she couldn't make out actual words. On instinct, she ducked behind a pillar. Only then did she recognize one of the voices as belonging to Lucifer. The other voice was also vaguely familiar.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was the killer. Robert Carey was also here.

She unclipped her holster and drew her weapon. She scanned the vast, empty space for Morgan. However, the only people she saw were Lucifer and Robert. Scanning up and down the rows of pillars, she plotted a course to advance forward and to see if Morgan was hiding like her. She tried her best to stay behind Robert and find an advantageous position to take him down. Lucifer and Robert's conversation grew louder as she moved closer to the two men.

"I have nothing to say to you," Robert snarled.

Lucifer lifted one arm. Chloe's heart leaped into her throat at the sight of him leveling a gun at Robert. "Are you sure about that?"

The ensuing silence dragged as the two men stared at each other. When the stony-faced Lucifer moved his finger to the trigger, she nearly mirrored the movement on her own weapon.

"Kidding," Lucifer sing-sang.

He tossed the pistol carelessly back. It skated across the warehouse floor until it hit the base of a concrete pillar. The motion drew her attention to his chest, where his shirt now sported a handful of holes clustered around his center of mass. She was struck by the realization of what they were: bullet holes. But his ruined white shirt was clear of bloodstains. Though she was relieved he wasn't hurt, her mind raced with all kinds of questions.

Lucifer continued casually, "I have no interest in shooting you. You're clearly as human and as mundane as they come. So what's your interest in the aes sídhe girl? If you seek fame or fortune, you're sorely mistaken. She won't be able to give you either."

"She's an abomination."

Lucifer's expression darkened. "Nothing good will happen if you harm her either."

"She needs to die." Even though Chloe couldn't see Robert's face, the hatred was clear in his voice.

"Tell me, Mister Fairy Hunter. Why do you desire the girl's death so much?"

Even from this distance, Lucifer's eyes struck like a viper's hypnotic gaze. Robert's entire body stiffened when he fell under the Devil's spell. Then he blurted out without reservation, "That bitch lied to me. We were married for twelve years and she wasn't even human. I need to wipe all traces of her from this earth."

"You're the urchin's father." Understanding dawned across Lucifer's face, quickly followed by dark clouds of fury. He advanced on Robert, menace rolling off him in waves.

"Stay away from me, you monster!" exclaimed Robert.

"Monster?" Lucifer stopped dead in his tracks. Then he closed the distance in the blink of an eye, nightmare incarnate looming over Robert. The Devil cocked his head and asked with a gaping smile, "Then what does that make you, Mister Filicide?"

She slammed a hand over her mouth, biting into her palm to keep from crying out. Lucifer's face... She could only compare the sight to having distilled fear injected straight into her amygdala. This was different from seeing his real face after that mess with Marcus. His human face simultaneously split and melted away, revealing a myriad of fleeting images: the red of fresh-spilled blood, falling at terminal velocity with the ground rising up to meet her, the emptiness and blackness inside a black hole, and other awful sensations she couldn't put to words.

"Demon!" screamed Robert. One hand drew the sign of the cross while his other reached into his waistband. Chloe caught a glimpse of metal tucked under his shirt. Was it another gun?!

She jumped out of her hiding place. "Lucifer! Watch out!"

"Detecti—" Lucifer's speech transformed into a wounded cry mid-syllable as Robert lunged forward.

Chloe brought up her gun, but her partner stood too close to Robert to allow for a clean shot. Robert looked over his shoulders, face white as a sheet and eyes bulging. As soon as he spotted her gun, he pushed Lucifer away and dove for cover behind the nearest pillar. Chloe's two shots flew wide, impacting the side of the concrete. Rapid footsteps rang through the loading bay. Robert was making a run for it.

She turned to issue orders at Lucifer but stopped mid-address, stunned into silence by the sight of him. His face was human again, wide-eyed and shell-shocked as he gaped at the metal spike plunged into his chest. A rapidly growing spot of red bloomed outward from the spike.

"Oh my god, oh my god." Chloe somehow caught him before he collapsed, but his heavy weight dragged them both to the floor.

She laid him flat on the floor, unable to tear her eyes from the metal sticking out of his chest. It was a railroad spike, like the one used to kill Dana Carey. And he was still bleeding. Why was he bleeding? This sort of wound was fatal for a human. But he wasn't human. He was the Devil. Tears gathered in her eyes. "Lucifer, what do I do? You're going to be okay, aren't you?"

He laughed wetly. "Afraid not, Detective. Fear not, I'm acquainted with the guy who runs the place where I'm headed."

Hell. She realized with a touch of hysteria. He was dying. He was going back to Hell. "You can't die."

He cupped her hand and tugged it away from the spike. "Dying is old hat for me. Save the urchin, Detective. She's hidden but he'll always find her. She's the trigger. If she dies, everything will reset again."

Chloe froze. Morgan was the trigger? She met Lucifer's dark eyes, watching as the light inside faded. A horrible thought crept up on her. Even when she died so many times, she woke up alive and whole at the start of each loop. If Morgan died, then the day would restart. Lucifer would live then. If she let Morgan die, Lucifer would be fine.

She could only save one. Without a loop, it was Lucifer or Morgan. One or the other, but not both. The choice should be obvious. She should—

Chloe's eyes slammed open. She was back in her bedroom, which meant Morgan...

She ripped off her covers and fled to the bathroom. The sound of her slamming open the toilet seat echoed off the tiles, louder than a gunshot. Delilah's singing haunted her even as Chloe retched into the toilet bowl.

Everything—from her throat to the deep well of guilt in the pit of her stomach—burned.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
Loop 8

"Detective?"

Startled by the noise, Chloe jerked her head up. Lucifer hovered on the edge of her watery field of vision. Lucifer was alive. He lived because Morgan died instead...

She dry heaved into the toilet again, spitting out mouthfuls of acidic saliva to clear her raw throat. The blurry form in her peripheral vision knelt at her side. Even though his cool, clammy hands were a relief against her feverish skin, she flinched under his touch. The motion sent her stomach roiling as a fresh wave of nausea clawed up her esophagus.

With gentle hands, he held her hair back and muttered, "There, there, Detective."

More tears sprang to her eyes. Her pitiful moan echoed inside the bowl. She pressed her forehead against the cool ceramic and waited for nausea to pass.

Her jaw was rock-like and she struggled to move it to speak. "How... How did you get here so fast?"

A tentative but soothing hand traced the curve of her spine. She shivered.

"I flew," Lucifer replied.

Her head dropped. He'd told her repeatedly. Maybe it would finally sink in now. "Right, you have wings. But _why _are you here?"

"I... I was concerned. I feared something might have happened to you before the reset. It's a good thing I came." He gently stroked the nape of her neck.

"Why?" Chloe moaned. "Why the hell did you take Morgan to the warehouse? Why would you put her in such a dangerous position?"

"I had to," he argued. "This cretin has found you without fail every time. Why is that? Because of what I did, we now know the urchin is the reset trigger and that he's able to track her with magic."

She wanted to ask him exactly how he figured it out. But right now the how's were far less important than the why's of what he did. "You took her without telling me! It was stupid. It was reckless. Even for you, Lucifer. You're supposed to be my partner. You can't cut me out of my own case."

"I had it handled. If you—" he cut himself off abruptly and averted his gaze.

"If I what? If I hadn't chased you down?" She choked back a sob. "Lucifer, you were dying. I still don't understand. How can the Devil die? You always talk about how you're immortal. He shot you, didn't he? Several times! I saw the bullet holes in your shirt! You don't wear bullet-proof vests. Was the railroad spike enchanted or something?"

"Yes, the cretin shot me. But no, that spike wasn't enchanted."

Chloe threw off his quasi-embrace and shoved him away. Lucifer fell back, landing flat on his ass. He watched her warily but made no moves to come closer. She rose to her feet and started pacing across the cramped, enclosed space.

He stood unsteadily, using the tiled wall for support. The fluttering fabric of his open shirt drew her gaze to his flawless torso. Just as she died and woke up without a scratch every loop, so did he. No blood. No bullet holes. No gaping wound left by a spike through the heart. But most importantly, not even a scar from when Malcolm shot Lucifer in the gut. Unlike her wretched souvenirs from Jimmy and numerous others she crossed paths with in her nearly two decades of policing.

He was more than restored. He was perfect.

"Then why?!" she demanded. "How can you take multiple bullets to the chest and not get a scratch, but nearly die when you get stabbed? You bleed when glass shards cut your cheek. And you almost died when Malcolm shot you. I mean, I shot you. _I_ shot you! I felt so horrible about that, by the way? So how were you dying? Is anything even real with you? Were—Were you trying to manipulate me? Were you trying to make me feel bad? Is this some kind of game to you? Is this all to make me care about you more? Make me lov—"

She dissolved into tears. She walked on a razor's edge, balanced between the desperate emotions and monstrous truths. If she stopped moving now, they'd cut her to pieces.

"No," he whispered, shaking his head slowly.

All the questions she'd hoarded over the months and years knotted her tongue, rendering her mute. She now understood there would always be questions when it came to Lucifer Morningstar. He was more than an enigma. He was beyond her simple human understanding.

The answers he gave or would give... Would they satisfy? Her sanity already hung by a thinning tether, but she craved them even if they drowned her in a maddening sea.

"Then what? How is it that sometimes you don't get hurt and then, other times, you do? _What is the difference_?" she screamed.

"You are, Detective. I don't fully understand why but... I'm only vulnerable when I'm close to you."

She halted abruptly, whipping her head almost ninety degrees to gape at him. "Why me?" she finally asked, voice fraying around the seams.

_Please tell me._

In true Lucifer fashion, he gave the most meaningful meanless answer. "Because you're you, Chloe."

There were too many emotions to untangle in his voice, but his longing hit her the hardest. She's been here before; surrounded by bouquets of red roses and trading verbal blows over whom deserved whom. She'd walked away then, broken-hearted and straight into her ill-advised engagement. She itched to reach out, but her body refused to obey, overwhelmed by everything he couldn't say out loud.

Lucifer took one look at her and his expression shuttered. "I'll see you at the station, Detective."

"Wait—"

Her ears rang with the sound of her rushing blood and a thousand flapping wings. The white of her bathroom walls was dwarfed by the mystifying appendage sprouting out of his back. Then he was gone.

-x-x-x-

Her hands stopped shaking by the time she dropped Trixie off at school, earning her many worried looks from her daughter. In the station parking lot, she sat for almost half-an-hour while staring blankly into the unseen distance. She was past the point of panic attacks. Instead, she felt numb. Like every revelation over the past dozens of hours repeated stole a piece of her, never to be recovered. Her phone chimed, jolting her from her daze.

It was a text from Lucifer: _WHERE R U?_

The lack of emoji and gratuitous punctuation screamed louder than any capslock.

After a moment's hesitation, she replied with: _Arriving at the station now._

The first thing she noticed as soon as she stepped into the bullpen was that Dan's desk was empty and his chair was missing. She soon found said chair parked against the side of her desk and occupied by Lucifer. Instead, Morgan sat in Lucifer's usual chair with her head once again buried in _Coraline_. Surrounded by other people and the station's familiar scenery, Chloe's previous uneasiness melted away.

Almost an hour had passed since the scene in her bathroom. Not only did Lucifer arrive earlier than her, but he also brought Morgan to the station. It took at least 40 minutes to drive out to Topanga. There should be no way...

"How did you get here so fast? Did you..." Chloe glanced around to make sure no one was watching before flapping her hands in pantomime.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. In their time apart, he'd both cleaned and sobered up. It was like he didn't start the loop face-first in a pile of coke. "Only from the motel, and we drove here from LUX. We're short on time after all. I detest using them unless absolutely necessary."

"And you feel alright?" She addressed the young girl.

Morgan shrugged. "It was easier than flying by magic."

He glared, smoothing his jacket's lapel as he spoke, "Which is why you wrinkled my suit with your tiny, grubby hands. Now shoo, go bother Miss Lopez."

To Chloe's surprise, Morgan climbed out of her seat and ambled over to Ella's lab.

Stunned, Chloe asked, "Wait, does she also remember everything?"

"No. I merely told her the truth." Sensing her growing alarm, he added, "Worry not. I said nothing of her mother or father. I told her who I am and who you are and that we're trying to protect her."

Chloe's eyebrow shot up. "And she believed you?" After everything she'd seen, she worried about Morgan's apparent guile.

"She's aware of what she is. She has no reason to disbelieve me." Lucifer shrugged nonchalantly.

She edged around him and collapsed into her chair. He watched, silent and as attentive as a hunting hawk, while she shuffled papers on her desk. She took the time to gather her whirlwind thoughts.

He began, "Chloe, Detective. Earlier we—"

"Let's concentrate on the case. Please," she pleaded. The sound of her name on his lips might unravel her.

He pursed his lips. "Very well, Detective, how would you like to proceed?"

Chloe powered on her computer and went searching for the same missing person reports Ella previously found. She pulled up the family photo first and turned her monitor to show it to Lucifer. "That was him, wasn't it? The man at the warehouse? Morgan's father?"

He gave a silent nod.

"Most of the time he wears a face mask. But I saw his face that time he broke into my house and—" She took a steadying breath before continuing, "Anyway, I'm certain he's the man that's been stalking Morgan in every loop."

"And hurting you," Lucifer added. The sharp edge to his voice chilled her to the core, reminding her of how dangerous he can be when he puts his mind to it.

"I was in his way. Ultimately, Robert Carey's target is his daughter. He's carrying a railroad spike like the one we found in Robin, sorry, Dana's body. So it's safe to say he murdered his wife." Chloe might be dealing with angels and fairies, but she could still apply deductive reasoning to the case.

Lucifer snorted. "Cold iron. Old Robbie knows exactly what they are."

"But Morgan is still his daughter, right?"

He continued matter-of-factly, "The urchin is part human, but her mother must be full-bloodied aes sídhe. You don't see many of them here in the mortal plane. They tend to stick to the Otherworlds for good reason. Much like the divine, the Fae are not meant to mix with humanity."

Filled with sudden paranoia, she glanced around the office frantically. What if someone overheard them? Lucifer had a reputation as someone eccentric, but some topics must still test the limits of his charisma. No one appeared to pay their conversation, no matter how odd, any attention.

He caught her eye and sighed. "You needn't worry too much, Detective. Humans will twist themselves into pretzels to justify what I tell them instead of considering the most obvious answer. No one ever believes me. You didn't."

The reminder stabbed her like a dull-tipped railroad spike. In the end, she went with the flow. Even if her colleagues overheard them, it'd all be wiped clean if she failed and they reset again.

"Fine, she's part fairy. She's triggering these time loops. Can't we ask her to stop then?"

"The urchin isn't directly responsible."

She ground her teeth impatiently. "Then what is?"

"You've seen her necklace, haven't you?"

Chloe nodded. It was a beautiful piece.

"It's made from an Otherworld metal. I'm not familiar with aes sídhe magic, but it appears to carry a protection spell. Maybe it was cast by her mother. If I understood the iconography better, I might be able to say for sure. But it just looks like a pot to me." Lucifer tapped his chin thoughtfully.

A memory scratched at the threshold of Chloe's consciousness. "Morgan told us it was 'the cauldron of Dagda' in a previous loop. Does that ring any bells?"

He shrugged. "I'm not a magical encyclopedia."

She fished out her phone with a sigh. If Lucifer didn't know, maybe the internet did. Wikipedia stood among the first search results. "The cauldron of the Dagda is supposed to be bottomless, 'from which no man left unsatisfied' ."

He leaned close to see her screen. Her knees trembled as she was simultaneously assaulted by the need to be closer and run away. Without asking, he tagged the link to the article on the Dagda.

"Associated with fertility, agriculture, strength, magic, and wisdom," he read.

Her eyes drifted south on the webpage. "Here. Says he controls life and death, the weather and crops, and time and the seasons."

"That explains why her protection spell took the form of time loops. Still, I wouldn't think the necklace alone was powerful enough to..." he trailed off with furrowed brows, then his eyes lit up. "Unless... Do you know what today is, Detective?"

"March 20th," she swallowed thickly, captivated by his dark eyes. "The third anniversary of our first meeting."

Her words seemed to startle him briefly. "Yes, but more importantly, it's the vernal equinox."

The image of beautiful ethereal women in flowing dresses dancing through green fields sprang to mind. "Today's the first day of spring."

Lucifer nodded. A faint smile of approval flickered across his lips. "The Otherworlds move particularly close to this plane during this period. That proximity puts the aes sídhe at the height of their power here on Earth. All these factors—a spell cast by a full-blooded aes sídhe, the equinox, and the totem of an Otherworld god—are converging to create this effect. Whenever the urchin's life is forfeit, the spell rewinds time to offer another chance."

Chloe nodded firmly. "Then that's how we'll stop this. We catch him and save Morgan's life."

-x-x-x-

Saving Morgan Carey was easier said than done. Chloe should know. She'd tried nearly a dozen times unsuccessfully. Thanks to her accumulated effort over said repeated failures, she now had a face, a name, and a motive for her suspect. But she couldn't reasonably account for how she knew what she knew. Without hard evidence of a crime, Robert would be free within a matter of hours. Chloe couldn't protect Morgan for the rest of her life.

"We can kill Robbie." Lucifer tossed out the suggestion so cavalierly that her blood ran cold.

"We can't. We're the police."

He watched her for several long seconds, never blinking. "Twas a joke, Detective."

"That's not funny." She crossed her arms across her chest, digging her nails into her forearms.

He swiveled his chair around. "No, I suppose it wasn't," he said tightly.

Heart still thumping, she returned her attention back to organized piles of paper spread over the table. Without a warrant, their investigation was confined to Robert Carey's public records, including his DMV records and his limited social media presence. Through his LinkedIn profile, she found his job with a fancy boutique trading firm located in midtown Manhattan. One quick call to its office confirmed that Robert was on a leave of absence due to personal reasons. The receptionist that Chloe spoke with had no idea when he would return to work.

In the end, none of the new information she dug up gave them anything concrete to work with. How were they going to find Robert? They didn't know if he had any friends or family in LA that he was staying with. They couldn't find him through his financials like credit card purchases. Twisting her head to one side, she stared at the back of Lucifer's head. She knew he was paying more attention than he let on because he wasn't fiddling with his phone or a makeshift toy pilfered from one of her colleagues' desk.

She turned to face his back and rested her hip against the conference table. "You said he can track Morgan. But how? I checked both her and the luggage for tracking devices. She doesn't even have a cell phone."

Lucifer leaned back, dipping his chair back low enough to meet her gaze from his upside-down position. "That's because he's using a spell."

When she didn't immediately freak out at the mention of magic, she gave herself a pat on the back. Maybe she was finally becoming used to all this weird stuff. "Robert's human, right? How can he do magic?"

"Robbie may not be magical, but the urchin is and they're bound by blood. When I disarmed him at the warehouse, I saw the spell runes hidden under his sleeve. It's not easy, but it's possible by taking advantage of the equinox," explained Lucifer. "Days of power work in all directions."

Chloe had a wild idea. She grabbed her notepad and flipped to a clean page. "What kind of runes were they? Maybe if we can reverse engineer it, we can find him instead."

He shrugged. "Not sure. They were jagged and angular."

"Shouldn't you know?!"

"Please, Detective, I speak every language. Reading's more Amenadiel's thing."

"Call Amenadiel then?"

He clenched his jaws. "No."

Normally, she would argue her point. But something about the finality of his tone warned her off. Fine. That still wouldn't stop her from engaging with the situation head-on. She could still reason her way through the case. At least Lucifer was willing to serve as her "magical" consultant.

"So you don't know for sure that it's a tracking spell. I saw them too that time I fought him back at my place. It might be a tattoo. We need to consider all possibilities. What if he remembers from one loop to the next, he can use his knowledge over each successive iteration to decide what to do next."

"That's impossible. He might be able to wrangle up a simple tracking spell, but there's no way he can manage something powerful enough to escape the effects of the time loop."

She dropped her notepad and squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Then what if he's like me? What did you say before? I had a spark of divinity that was protecting me?"

"That's even less likely," he hopped to his feet and pushed the chair away. It rolled down the length of the table as Lucifer closed the distance between them. "You are uniquely singular in that regard."

She opened his mouth to ask him why that was, but his sudden closeness threw her off. Frozen, she held as still as a statue when he swooped in and reached for her waist with one arm. The memories she'd done her best to bury sprang to mind: how tender her name sounded on his lips, the resignation with which he admitted to being the Devil, and how she'd reached up to finally receive his kiss. His hand grazed her hips. She shivered. She didn't dare close her eyes at that moment. But one second he was there and the next he'd moved away. In the space growing between them, he lifted his hand to show her the broken feather taken from her jacket pocket.

"You were carrying this with you the whole time, weren't you, Detective?" he asked.

The feather looked duller than before, appearing more gray than white. The light it once shone with had dimmed. Even its edges looked singed. But it was the same feather she took from the loft. She nodded.

"The remaining divinity is so faint I almost couldn't sense it. An angel's feather is a powerful thing. A single feather can heal mortal injuries, or in your case, preserve your memories through multiple temporal resets.." He smiled sadly. "Its power is nearly spent though."

A sense of foreboding swept through Chloe. "What happens when it's used up?"

"It'll burn through whatever remains in the next reset. Once that happens, you'll forget like everyone else."

He couldn't hide the slight wobble in his voice. She sympathized. She too recognized the splintering between them threatening to tear into an unbridgeable chasm. She gazed at the feather seemingly suspended over his palm and considered their dilemma. If they failed, Lucifer would remember, she would forget, and Morgan would still be in grave danger. Lucifer might approach her and try to tell her what was happening. But would she believe him?

She didn't know the answer. She wished she could say with 100% confidence she would have. Her eyes landed on the empty space mantling his shoulders where she caught a glimpse of mighty wings in her bathroom. "Can't you give me a new feather?"

"It doesn't work like that. If I give you a new one now, you'd no longer have it at the start of a new loop."

He placed the feather on the conference table and stepped back. With trembling hands, she picked it up and twirled it between her thumb and index finger. Every time she spun the feather, it shed soot and bits of down. She stowed it in her pocket for safekeeping. "Then what about you? Will you end up like the feather?"

"Maybe." He shrugged, and she nearly objected out loud to his nonchalance. "But it wouldn't be for many, many cycles. More pressing issues would present themselves before that happened. I wasn't joking when I said any further reset can unravel space and time itself, Detective. Although Dad may not intervene even if his toys get broken, any number of my siblings will take notice soon. When they do, they will swarm to Earth to enforce dear old Dad's will. Believe me when I say that they will not hold back."

Chloe never cared about the Bible before meeting Lucifer. She never bothered to read any meaningful portion of it until she saw Lucifer's real face. Angels weren't as benevolent as pop culture liked to portray them. They were God's warriors and enforcers. So Lucifer was right about one thing: there was no more room for failure.

-x-x-x-

There were any number of things Chloe should and was professionally obligated to do before using a child as bait. Like putting out a BOLO on Robert Carey, starting the paperwork to confirm Dana Carey as her murder victim, or officially responding to Edison PD's missing person reports. But any one of the things would also kick off the bureaucratic machine that would remove Morgan from what measure of protection offered by Chloe (and by extension, Lucifer). If CFS took Morgan into custody, she would be vulnerable no matter where she was placed.

Obviously, it all paled in comparison to the looming existential threat. But she couldn't write "suspect threatened the integrity of time/space" in her arrest report. So here she was back at LUX, laying a trap for Morgan's murderous father.

She rounded a bend in the hallway in time to watch Lucifer deposit a stack of crates in front of the fire exit door. The bottles inside the crates rattled as soon as they hit the floor. Another stack, taller than Lucifer, already blocked the other half of the door. Even if Robert got past the locked fire exit, he wasn't getting around those heavy crates without either making lots of noise or injuring himself. Lucifer, on the other hand, didn't even break a sweat.

"The other doors are secured," she reported.

She was the first to admit LUX made the most strategically sound choice for their trap. They needed a location with minimal foot traffic, a layout that funneled their target into an open space, and known access points they could control. There was also no denying it was Lucifer's territory and where he was most comfortable.

"Let's head back," he said grimly.

She trailed behind him, pumping her legs to keep up with his longer stride. Once back in the main area of the club, Lucifer went straight to the bar on the other side of the room and poured himself a drink. She turned toward the front entrance, the last remaining way in and out of the building on the ground floor. Her eyes slid over to the closed elevator doors. In a reversal of his open-door policy, he had locked out the penthouse floor where Morgan was secured. Being separated from Morgan made Chloe nervous. But given how aggressive Robert had been so far, it was best to keep Morgan out of his line of sight. No one was getting to her without going through Chloe and Lucifer first.

"I hope dear Robbie gets here soon. The penthouse is not child-proof," Lucifer commented dryly.

They'd cleaned up as best as they could before leaving Morgan upstairs. That included throwing out the trash that piled up again and relocating Lucifer's illicit stash somewhere out of reach. She pulled out her phone to check the time. It was already past four o'clock.

"As long as he follows the timeline established in previous loops, he shouldn't be long," she declared.

"Yes, I suppose he is very determined to kill the urchin."

Chloe shook her head. No matter how many times she came across this situation in her line of work, the thought still made her sick to the stomach. "I still don't understand. How can he do that to his child?"

His jaw clenched. His eyes flashed even from across the room. "Why? Detective, you should know better than most that humans fear those who are different and those they don't understand."

Her breath caught in her throat. Something thorny, shame and outrage, bloomed in her chest. "That's not fair, Lucifer."

"Is that so, Detective?"

The frantic click of her heels sliced the silence repeatedly. She didn't stop marching until she reached his side. "Just because I didn't react the way you wanted doesn't make me the same as Robert Carey. I didn't try to hurt you. I wouldn't try to kill you."

He expressed his disbelief through his silence and shuttered eyes.

She swallowed thickly. "I admit I was afraid at first. You're the actual Devil, and I didn't know how to deal with that. I was so tempted to take Trixie and run away. Out of the country. To Europe or something. But I couldn't leave or approach you. But that loop we spent together in the penthouse... I saw you. I really saw you. And I remembered how you made me feel. No matter what stories or the Bible says about you, you're not that guy, Lucifer."

"But what if I am that guy?" he asked in a mocking tone, leaning forward to breathe alcohol across her face.

She met his eyes firmly. "You're not. Even if you once were, you've changed."

His mouth fell open in a perfect circle of surprise. If their conversation wasn't about such a serious subject, Chloe might have been tempted to laugh at his expression. They were long overdue to have this talk. Maybe if one of them had truly and earnestly reached out to the other, they wouldn't be stuck in this mess.

Her heart clambered up her throat. She had to say it now. "I'm not afraid of you. Not anymore. I'm afraid of losing you—"

A long creak interrupted her. She spun on her heels, hands flying to her weapon holster. At the top of the stairs stood Robert Carey, dressed in his usual dark-colored outfit and baseball cap. He wasn't wearing a surgical mask to hide his identity for once. Chloe didn't know if this change alarmed or comforted her. Even though she didn't see any weapons in his hands, she unclipped her holster but didn't draw her gun. He must still be armed under his black jacket.

"Uh, hi." Robert slapped on a fake smile. "Are you guys open?"

Lucifer deposited his glass on the bar and glided forward, placing himself between Chloe and Robert, who began to descend the stairs. "Not for several hours. Is there something I can help you with? I'm the owner here, Lucifer Morningstar."

She refused to let him use himself as a shield. Ignoring his warning look, she stepped out from behind to maintain a clear line of sight on their target.

Robert paused at the foot of the stairs, gripping the banister to keep from stumbling. "Your parents really named you Lucifer?"

"Indeed, they did."

Robert steeled himself visibly before coming closer. "Actually, this is rather embarrassing. I'm looking for my little girl." He reached into his pocket, and Chloe almost drew her firearm. But his hand withdrew with a cellphone. He swiped the screen several times before flashing a photo of Morgan. "Her name's Morgan. I don't suppose you've seen her."

"You came to the right place! Wouldn't you agree, Detective?" Lucifer asked sweetly.

Robert's grip on his phone turned white-knuckled. Panic flashed through his eyes fast. "Detective?"

Chloe swept her jacket aside, presenting the badge and her gun clipped to her belt. "Detective Decker, LAPD."

Robert paled and took a half-step back.

"Should we call it in, Detective? He must be worried sick about his missing spawn."

Training her icy gaze on Robert, Chloe stepped forward. She brushed off Lucifer's attempt to pull her back though. She wasn't going to hide behind Lucifer, Devil or not. "Sir, why don't you come with me? We can fill out a report down at the station."

"Don't worry about it, Detective uh Decker. You see, my wife and I have been fighting, so she probably took our daughter to blow off a little steam," Robert gave a nervous smile. "I don't want to get her into trouble over nothing."

Chloe held strong. Just a few more steps, then she'll tackle Robert to the ground and handcuff him.

Lucifer, on the other hand, had tired of the charade. "Your wife? You mean, your wife whom you murdered and left to rot in an abandoned warehouse, Robbie?"

"Lucifer!" she scolded.

"What?! How do you know my name?" Robert demanded and backed away. He frantically reached into his waistband.

Whether it was for a gun or that railroad spike didn't matter. Chloe wouldn't be able to physically restrain him in time. She went for her own firearm. If it came down to it, she'd shoot first to protect Lucifer, Morgan, and herself.

But Lucifer was faster than either her or Robert. In a flash, he closed the distance, knocked a pistol out of Robert's hand, and captured both his wrists in a crushing grip. "I think not. You've done enough damage."

"Let me go! You're insane!" Robert tried to pull away but whimpered in pain when the grip tightened.

Lucifer jerked the man and reeled him close until Robert couldn't escape his captivating gaze. "Robbie, Robert," Lucifer coaxed in a silky tone. "Why are you really so eager to find your daughter?"

Up close, there was no fighting Lucifer's mojo. Robert immediately went slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. "Because I want to kill her like her mother." But as soon as he finished speaking, he snapped out of the spell cast by Lucifer. "Wait! What? What did you do to me?"

"Moi? I asked a question, and you answered truthfully." Lucifer flashed a shark-like grin. "We can arrest him now? Right, Detective? He confessed to his wife's murder."

Chloe reholstered her gun and fetched her handcuffs instead. Lucifer spun their suspect around in one graceful movement, yanking Robert's arms behind his back for Chloe's convenience. While rattling off his Miranda rights, she snapped on the cuffs, then patted him down for other weapons. She found the railroad spike first and tossed it across the floor with a clang. He also had a utility belt hanging around his waist, which she removed and opened the largest pouch. Inside was a bundle of dried herbs. She handed the belt to Lucifer, who hummed at the content of other pouches.

"You can't arrest me! You can't prove anything!" Robert screamed and squirmed.

"Really?" Lucifer smirked and pulled his cellphone from his inner breast pocket. With a press, a tinny recording of Robert's confession played out. "I'll text it to you, Detective."

She yanked harshly on the handcuff chain and growled, "You pulled a gun on a police officer, which is a felony assault. You can pretend all you want, but I know you murdered your wife, Dana. I'll prove it. And Morgan? I won't let you hurt her."

Robert craned his neck just enough for Chloe to see the sudden feverish light in his eyes. "You don't understand. You don't know _what_ they are. They aren't human. I'm doing this to protect _us_. Can't you see we're on the same side? If you bring her here, I can show you. You'll see then!"

Lucifer moved into Robert's direct line of sight, grinning maniacally. "Oh, you mean like this?"

One look at Lucifer's devil face mere inches away sent Robert first screaming, then into a dead faint. Robert hit the floor with a thump. Thankfully, the faint rise and fall of his chest confirmed he was still alive. Just unconscious.

She glared at Lucifer. "Great, how do I get him to the station like this?"

Rolling his eyes, Lucifer bent down and scooped their unconscious suspect over one shoulder. "Worry not, you have me, Detective."

"Yeah. I guess I do," she whispered.


	8. Epilogue: Lucifer

Epilogue: Lucifer

The first day of spring was over at long last. The sun set while Lucifer took refuge in the silent darkness of his empty club. The minutes and hours dragged on without him forcibly yanked back into a pile of cocaine. They'd finally broken the cycle.

It meant Chloe was safe.

He slowly swirled his glass of whisky, staring unseeing into the mirrored wall behind the bar. He had no plans to open LUX for the night and only his dwindling store of liquor to keep him company. The Detective left several hours ago and even thanked him for his help on her way out. Backup carted away the unconscious suspect carted after taking Lucifer's statement. The Detective soon took the half-aes sídhe spawn with her back to the station.

She wouldn't return. But he couldn't deny how good it was to see her, stand close to her, speak to her again. No matter how short a while. Time and distance did not lessen his affection for her. Seeing her injured or worse, dying, hurt worse than taking an entire armory to the heart. How was he supposed to proceed? Even without him, circumstances conspired to whisk her away early to his Dad's kingdom. But staying with her was no longer an option. They weren't partners. They weren't friends. They weren't anything to each other anymore.

A tide of fury rose inside him. He squeezed the glass until it shattered in his grip. Any satisfaction gained from that petty act of destruction was cut short by the stinging in his palm. Drops of red dripped into the growing puddle of whisky spreading across the bar.

Blood. He was bleeding.

LUX's front door swung open and a familiar voice called out, "Lucifer? Are you here?"

He stood hastily, knocking over a bar stool when he turned to gape at the Detective. The heavy clicks of her heels as she descended the stairs matched his heart pounding in his ears. There was no hiding the pure wonder in his voice. "You came back."

She furrowed her brow as she approached. The expression was so familiar and endearing, he itched to sweep her up in a hug. He didn't move though. He remained glued at the hip to his bar.

"I thought I should check on you."

The sudden caginess in her eyes and a nervous edge to her words stomped out any hope budding in his chest. He resettled the stool he knocked over and wiped the liquor and blood from his hand and the bartop with a stack of napkins. No reason for her to see how much of a mess he really was. Even with his vulnerability, he healed fast. After sweeping the broken glass into the rubbish bin behind the bar, he retrieved two clean glasses and a new bottle from the top shelf. "Can I interest you in one, Detective? Or are you still on duty?"

She hesitated upon reaching the bar. Then in a move that surprised him, she nodded and took a seat in the same stool he sat in moments ago. "Sure."

He poured two fingers for each of them. He set hers on a coaster before sliding it across. She took it with a murmured "thanks." He knew he shouldn't stare, but his eyes never left her face as she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip.

Humming in appreciation, her shoulders relaxed. "That's good."

Usually, he'd brag about the 50-year-old bottle of single-malt scotch. He took three deep gulps instead, draining his glass, and poured another two fingers. Damn his celestial constitution. He wasn't ready to tackle any conversation with the Detective while sober. She patted the seat next to her. Despite his apprehension, he was helpless to refuse the invitation. The warmth radiating from her was simultaneously a burn and its balm. Lucifer was too well-acquainted with the follies of hope. But she came back. Not only that. She stayed and accepted his offer of a drink.

"It's finally over. We did stop it, right?" She directed her words mostly at the amber liquid in her glass. The stress of multiple time loops visibly weighed on her.

"We did," confirmed Lucifer. "The sun's set, the equinox has ended, and the urchin's safe."

For now. Until the police had to release Robbie from custody or a judge granted him bail. The human justice system was flawed. He made up his mind then. Brigid, a local LA witch, owed him a favor. Her family line had some aes sídhe in the distant past. The urchin needed the guidance of someone who knew and understood what she was. At the very least, Brigid could teach the girl how to hide from prying spellwork.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her sit up. When she angled her body to face his profile, her knees brushed against the side of his thigh. The touch startled him into almost destroying a second glass.

"How about a toast then?" she asked and raised her glass.

"To what, Detective?"

She thought about it for a second. "To teamwork?"

His reply rolled awkwardly off his sandpaper tongue. "Yes, to stopping the bad guy."

They clinked their drinks together and drank. The silence that enveloped them was a comfortable one. Tonight, he had her for company. They might have a long-overdue conversation, however nerve-wracking or stomach-twisting it might turn. They might not. And tomorrow? He'll contact Brigid. He'll pull strings to get Morgan placed with Brigid.

As for the two of them, who knows? Only time will tell. But tomorrow will offer new opportunities. Tomorrow will be a new day.

-Fin-


End file.
